


Do You Know Her?

by rarmaster



Series: YWKON [6]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kidnapping, Reincarnation, Rescue Missions, XC2 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 55,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: “I haven’t seen my children in a hundred years,” she whispers, voice full of a deep longing. “I haven’t seen your mother in that long, either.”Lloyd smirks. “And what makes you think you’ll see any of them again?” he asks.All of his proud fire is blown out by Miang’s smile—too knowing; all teeth—and the words that follow it.“Because they’ll come for you," she says. “Won’t they?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for: human experimentation (nothing graphic depicted, only alluded to), PTSD, panic attacks, suicidal ideation (one line in a later chapter), and a thematic prevalance of kids having a Strained Relationship with their mom, one of the moms present being rather Controlling
> 
> you probably want to read the rest of YWKON first or the rules of this universe are gonna be confusing because at this point it's not even vanilla XC2 rules either
> 
> there's a handful of non-ToS/OC characters in here so [here's a visual guide](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/1945.html?style=site)
> 
> shoutout to Aera, Ruri, and Aly, who helped me plot this and beta it and made it (and the entire AU, truthfully) what it is

He dreams of neon lights and pain and pain and pain and fear. The sensation of straps digging into his wrists until it hurts. A burning in his core. Knives in his skin. ( _Who the hell okayed him being awake for the procedure!?_ ) Stomach full of dread head full of pain cruel eyes looking down on him, considering him like he’s nothing more than an _animal_ —

He claws his way back to the waking world with a strangled shout before he has enough clarity to bite _that_ back down.

He is alone, in his room. The seconds it takes Kratos to recognize it make his lungs tight tight tight, but then he remembers. The waystation he’s staying at with Anna and her immediate family, having chosen to travel with them as they wrapped up loose ends with members of their now-done rebellion. ( _A chance to spend more time with Anna. To meet new friends she wanted to introduce him to, to catch up with old ones._ )

The sun is shining, natural light filtering through the low window—early morning, but. Late enough to wake, Kratos decides.

Better to wake with the ghosts that cling to his skin rather than try and sleep with them.

And the ghosts _do_ cling. The pressure on his wrists. The dread in his stomach. A faint pain in his core crystal. Likely leftovers from the nightmare. This would not be the first time Kratos has felt somewhat displaced while waking, ghosts of his past trying to drag him back down. The sensations should pass, in a few hours.

And if they don’t?

Well, it wouldn’t be the first bad day he’s had in the centuries he’s been alive.

 

\- - -

 

“You good?” Anna asks him when she finds him later that morning.

Kratos blinks, looks towards her. He wonders how long he’s been sitting listlessly at the table. Didn’t he see Jin and Lora off, not that long ago? He thinks so, but can’t remember what errand they said they’d be running. He looks down at his coffee—barely touched. He made it not long after getting up, so perhaps it hasn’t been long at all.

Putting his hand on the mug tells him it’s cold. It must have been a few hours, then.

( _The feelings persist. Pressure on his wrist, dread in his gut, phantom pain pain pain in his core_.)

“Bad night,” Kratos says by way of explanation.

Anna’s seen him after plenty of those. She knows what he means, so she just hums in affirmation and kisses him on the cheek as she passes.

“Would you like more coffee?”

“Please.”

 

\- - -

 

A knock on the door. Kratos looks up, somewhat surprised. But then, isn’t Lloyd supposed to visit today? He’d contacted, last night, saying he was on the way. Either way, Kratos finds himself grateful for the distraction. He hasn’t done much more than sit at the table all day, unable to make himself move when the pressure on his wrists and in his lungs have not vanished, refuse to vanish.

( _There have been other sensations, a jarring hit to his right elbow about an hour ago, but; Lloyd isn’t exactly the least clumsy child in the world._ )

Kratos gets to his feet, breathing against the old memories that boil in his mind.

He opens the door.

Because Lloyd had sent word he was on his way, Kratos isn’t entirely surprised to see Colette and Zelos in the doorway.

However, he _is_ surprised to see them without Lloyd, _and_ looking terrified out of their minds.

“Hey—” Zelos begins.

“Can we come in?” Colette cuts him off with a sharp look.

“It’s _urgent_ ,” Zelos hisses at his sister.

“It can wait two seconds so we aren’t announcing it to the world!” Colette shoots back.

Kratos simply steps to the side to simultaneously let them in and diffuse the argument, his mind spinning too quickly to find words. Urgent. No Lloyd. The Aegises are panicked. Worry thrums in Kratos’ veins underneath the disjointed flow of his ether. He reaches up to readjust the ponytail he’s started keeping his hair in, the pressure of it tightening against the back of his head a welcome anchor.

Colette starts to move to the table, but stops when her brother doesn’t follow. Zelos plays with his fingers, standing rigid just paces from the doorway. His expression goes carefully neutral. He breathes.

“We can’t find Lloyd,” Zelos says.

Other than the somewhat grim edge in his voice, he might as well be talking about the weather.

“What,” Kratos says.

“ _WHAT?!_ ” comes Anna’s voice, from deeper into the little house. They wait until she’s joined them, standing in the mouth of the hallway that connects the front room to all the bedrooms. A hand braces her weight on the wall, her entire face a question.

“It’s—” Colette begins, her thumb rubbing back and forth and back and forth over her scarred core crystal. “He wasn’t there when we woke up this morning. But, this hasn’t _exactly_ been the first time he’s gotten up super early and then just, you know… went to go do something since he didn’t want to wake us.”

Kratos does know. He’s found Lloyd awake at odd hours during their journey, unable to sleep but not wanting to bother anyone with it, doing anything from practicing with his swords to exploring the area away from camp. Kratos’ hand lingers on the doorknob for a moment, but then he moves, since the doorway and the hallway are on opposite ends of the little house, and if he remains where he is the Aegises will have to twist back and forth to address both him and Anna at once.

“ _But,_ we looked everywhere,” Zelos continues, only the tightness of his voice betraying how calm he isn’t.

“And no one’s seen him,” Colette adds.

“And about an hour ago—”

“Yeah, an hour ago.”

“—our resonance with him snapped.”

“Oh,” Kratos says, understanding now their terror, and the severity of the situation. He braces his weight with a hand on the back of one of the table’s chairs.

“What the fuck?” Anna demands.

Zelos squirms a little, warring for a moment before his fear wins out. “Lloyd’s not fucking dead, is he?” he demands, rounding on Kratos.

Kratos blinks. “No,” he says. The words are hard to pin down through the fog in his mind. But with his lifeforce shared with Lloyd as it is right now, half of his core crystal in Lloyd’s chest—“I would know if he was.”

“That’s good,” Colette breathes in relief. Then she turns to send a somewhat exasperated look at her brother. “I _told_ you.”

Zelos glares, throws his hands out in front of him. “Yeah, well! Why the _hell_ did he snap resonance with us, then!?”

“Actually, I have a thought,” Anna says, moving towards the table. The unhurried way she moves makes Zelos glare at her. “No, look, hear me out. Listen. Let’s say Lloyd finds himself kidnapped by someone who’s _really_ interested in the fact he’s the Aegises’ driver.” She leans her hip against the table’s corner, arms crossed over her chest. “What does he do?”

It only takes the Aegises a moment to follow.

“Snap the resonance,” they say, in shaky unison.

“Bingo,” Anna says.

Zelos runs a hand over his face, fingers finding his hair and knotting in it. “Idiot,” he hisses, trembling. “How the _hell_ are we supposed to find him, then!”

Colette’s hand finds her brother’s arm. “But if we could find him, whoever has him could find us,” she counters, gently. “Lloyd knew exactly what he was doing.”

“And now we have _no idea_ where he is—”

“Hey, hey,” Anna interrupts, putting her hands up. “Calm down, alright? I think Kratos has us covered.” She sends a look at her husband, mouth curled in a hopeful, somewhat smug smile. “You have a general idea where he is, right? I know you do.”

Right. It’s hard not to tell where the other chunk of your core crystal is, even across large distances. Kratos takes a moment to feel it out, wading through the sea of ghosts that cling to him to feel the ether that ties him to Lloyd. It’s harder than normal, to find the connection, but he has it after a moment. A tugging from the… He can’t think clearly enough to name the direction, so instead he just points.

“That way,” he answers. “It’s distant.” No way he’ll be able to calculate the distance through the numbness of his core crystal. “I can’t give you anything more specific than that.”

“That’s bullshit,” Zelos spits.

“It’s _a lead_ ,” Anna corrects, beaming.

Colette nods. “It’s better than nothing, that’s for sure.”

Anna turns, leaning towards Kratos as she peers at him.

“Hey, Kratos,” she asks. “Anything else?”

It takes him a second. “Oh,” he says. And then: “ _Oh_ ,” as the realization really hits him. His knees feel weak enough he has to sit down in the chair he’s gripping. That intrusive, nonstop pressure on his wrists. He feels like an idiot.

“I…” Kratos begins, mouth dry. “Well. I have… reason to believe Lloyd’s been tied up.”

“ _Excuse_ me!?” Zelos snaps.

Anna, too, looks somewhat startled.

“Holy shit, really?” she asks, like she hadn’t expected that.

Kratos flexes his wrists to reassure himself he _can_ move them, even though the clinging sensation and all the memories it brings boiling up try to convince him otherwise. He’s alright. He’s not strapped to a table. Not being carted off to the next who knows where—

No, no, don’t think about that. Kratos pushes the memories out of his mind and nods slowly, to answer his family’s surprise.

“It does feel like restraints of some kind have been digging into my wrists for… well.” He looks up to find a clock, can’t locate one fast enough, and decides he’s too foggy right now to do the math, anyway. “However long I’ve been awake?”

Anna presses both hands flat against the table, leaning halfway over it so she can glare, concerned, at her husband.

“And you didn’t _say_ anything?” she hisses.

Kratos shrugs, somewhat lethargic.

“Believe me, after the nightmares last night, hallucinating the sensations definitely ranked higher on my list than assuming it was on Lloyd’s end,” he answers.

Horror slowly passes over Anna’s face, is mirrored on Colette’s. ( _Thumb back and forth and back and forth over her scarred core crystal._ ) Zelos glares, all his anger on display, arms crossed and frantically drumming fingers against his forearm.

“If it reassures you at all,” Kratos says, slowly. “He has not gotten hurt.”

Zelos grips his arm instead of drumming his fingers. Colette freezes, turning to Kratos with a tilted head.

“…No struggle, then?” she asks, clearly more concerned by that notion.

Anna exhales long and deep, dragging herself back upright slowly. “They probably drugged him,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. When everyone looks to her in confusion, she puts her hands out in front of her. “What? Hello! I’ve traveled the world as a revolutionary for 15 years, definitely put up with this shit before, know how it works. _Besides._ ” She gestures towards her husband with an open palm. “Kratos has been hazy all day, and drugs pass through the blade eater link as well as alcohol does.”

Zelos’ anger reaches maximum, worry for his driver boiling over until he can’t quite contain it. He marches one two steps towards Kratos, finger pointing accusingly. “And you didn’t think for a second that _maybe_ your son was in danger!?” he demands.

Kratos flinches back as far as he can, his nerves coiled too tightly right now for the sudden motion to do anything other than make his human heart pound out a frantic _thump thump thump thump,_ all of his air catching his lungs. It’s fine it’s fine he _knows_ he’s fine but neon lights cruel eyes the phantom sting of pain on his cheek play back, heightened and sharpened by the pressure pressure pressure in his wrists.

Zelos realizes his mistake, and steps back, hands quickly dropping to his sides.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. He won’t look at Kratos. “I’m just—” He fidgets, helplessly. “They could _hurt_ him. And it’s—”

“We forged resonance with each other, so we wouldn’t be completely alone,” Colette explains, which maybe Zelos didn’t want her to, based on the way he pouts. “But it’s still… _weird._ Without Lloyd. And we’re worried.”

Anna shakes her head, gentle. “You have every right to be worried,” she assures them. “But we’ll find—”

A sudden pain, near the inside of his right elbow. “Ow,” Kratos mumbles, with a jolt. It’s small, but sharp, somewhat intrusive— _Oh no._ He stares at his arm, and not at his family’s worried faces, as horror creeps up his throat. “Needle,” he explains, tapping the spot with his trembling left hand.

“Yeah, probably drugging him,” Anna says, sounding somewhat resigned, even if her voice _is_ tight.

“Or doing blood tests,” Kratos offers up, unable to do anything other than assume the worse with the memories that play on repeat in his mind.

Anna recoils. “Oh, no no no, don’t say that,” she whines. But it’s only a second after the words are out of her mouth that something else occurs to her, and she curses. “Wait, fuck, if they drugged him they probably realized the doses were off—”

“Maybe whoever has him doesn’t know what that means…?” Colette says, ever the optimist.

It doesn’t matter.

“We should hurry,” Kratos says. He gets to his feet with newfound strength fueled by his horror and his fury.

They are _not_ going to experiment on his _son_.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes to neon lights overhead. Lloyd goes to cover his eyes with a hand only to find he can’t move—or at least, not much. His hands are tied down to whatever the hell he’s on. …A table? Hmm.

That can’t be good.

( _The fact that he’s still only wearing his pajamas, since that’s what he was wearing last night—or, this morning?—when he got grabbed, makes him feel extra exposed, somehow._ )

Lloyd screws his eyes shut against the invasive light, twists his head to see if he can figure anything out. There’s a woman with dark purple hair cropped short behind her head and longer in the front at the edge of the room, monitoring some kind of computer. She looks up and turns toward him, alerted to his wakefulness at the noises he’s made.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” she says, delighted, as she approaches. There’s a green core crystal sitting in her collarbone among a nest of thin white scars, but she has no ether lines. Blade eater, then.

“What’s…” Lloyd begins, but decides that there’s more important questions. “Who are you?” he goes for, instead. “Where am I?”

She doesn’t answer right away, crossing the final step between them, leaning in and reaching out to push his hair out of his face, like there’s something fascinating she finds there. Lloyd squirms under the touch, but isn’t in much of a position to pull away. “Hey- hey!” he protests.

“Your mother’s name is Anna, right?” the woman asks.

Lloyd blinks. Scowls at her past her fingers.

“What- how did you—” he begins, before it occurs to him that maybe the less he reveals about himself, the better. The damage is already done, though.

“I thought so,” the woman says. She lets go of his hair and grabs him by the chin, turning his face left and right so she can examine it. “You look like her… You have her nose… her cheeks…” There’s a distant, somewhat wistful look in her eyes, which is actually… incredibly weird.

“Uh- You know my mom?” Lloyd asks, surprised, slowly starting to relax. Well, he’s still strapped _to a table,_ so that’s no good, but. Maybe this won’t be so bad?

( _He reaches subconsciously for his link to Colette and Zelos, for comfort, only to remember it’s not there. Sadness and longing ring in his stomach, along with the fear. He stands by his decision to end the resonance, but he misses them. And it’s so empty, now, in his mind. It’s so empty._ )

The woman lets go of him, straightening again. “Oh, yes, she was a coworker of mine,” she looks at Lloyd, eyebrows raised with her question: “Does the name Miang ring any bells?—Wait. She would have known me by Myyah.”

Lloyd stares blankly. The woman—Miang, he assumes she goes by now—seems disappointed, once it’s clear he doesn’t recognize her.

“Surprising that she didn’t at least mentioned me,” Miang mutters, fingers tracing the edge of the table Lloyd’s strapped to. There’s a deep sadness on her face. “Or maybe she’s forgotten. I suppose- it _has_ been a hundred years.”

“A _hundred_ —!?” Lloyd jolts. “There’s no way my mom’s lived that long!”

Miang sends him a look, eyebrows raised, her smile faintly amused.

“Well, perhaps there is no way for a _normal_ human, no,” Miang says. “But if she was a blade eater, then yes.”

Lloyd scowls. Miang’s right, of course. And he knows that. Anna doesn’t even look old enough to be his mother. _But._ Lloyd was _pretty sure_ that she’d mentioned Kratos was there when Malos split his core crystal with her, and he’s _also_ pretty sure that his parents haven’t known each other for more than about twenty years, so Miang’s math _still_ doesn’t add up.

“But that’s—” Lloyd begins.

“She always said if she had a son she’d name him Lloyd,” Miang continues, sending Lloyd a knowing smile.

Lloyd… doesn’t like this one bit. But more than all the nonsense Miang’s spewing—“If you’re a friend of my mom’s, what’s with all this!!” He struggles against his restraints for emphasis, since he can’t really _gesture_ when he’s strapped down.

The look Miang sends him might have been apologetic, if only her smile didn’t show so much teeth.

“I still need a few more samples,” she tells him.

“S- samples?” Lloyd repeats, voice catching.

“Let’s just say the results we got back from your bloodwork were… _fascinating,_ ” Miang says, grinning brightly. There’s a hungry look in her eyes that Lloyd hates.

( _Through the sudden fear crystalizing in his stomach, Lloyd reaches again for his blades—It’s so empty, it’s so empty._ )

“How so?” Lloyd asks around a knot in his throat. Since he can’t move, questions are all he has to him.

“Your ether levels are _astoundingly_ high for a human.”

No good, no good at all.

“I mean, I’m a blade eater—”

“Too high for that, too,” Miang informs him, like this is the best news she’s heard all day, maybe all year. “And your eyes…” She reaches towards him again and leans in, pushing his hair away from his face as she peers at him, still grinning. “Red’s an unusual color for a human.”

Lloyd squirms and tries to pull away from her grip with newfound urgency, but there’s really not much he can do strapped down like this.

“S- so?” he asks.

Miang pets his hair, which is worse, actually. Lloyd wishes she’d stop smiling.

“I’m so glad to have met you, Lloyd Irving,” she says. “It’s like you’re the last piece to every puzzle I left unsolved.” She traces her fingers down his cheek, gentle. Her smile softens considerably. “Even my children…” she whispers.

“What—”

But Lloyd remembers, when she first found him. She was so very, _very_ interested in Zelos and Colette. Cold shock floods his system. She- she _can’t_ mean…!

“I haven’t seen them in a hundred years,” Miang whispers, voice full of a deep longing. “I haven’t seen your mother in that long, either.”

If she _does_ mean Zelos and Colette, then—Lloyd hardens his resolve, swallows his fear to paint his face with all the bravado he can muster. ( _It’s hard, when his feelings echo so loudly in the void in his mind—but it’s better, better that she can’t find them. Even if he’s alone._ )

“And what makes you think you’ll see any of them?” he asks.

All of his proud fire is blown out by Miang’s smile—too knowing; all teeth—and the words that follow it.

“Because they’ll come for you,” she says. “Won’t they?”

Lloyd’s blood runs cold.

Miang smiles a little wider.

“And just to make sure…”

She pulls her hand away from Lloyd’s face, reaches for the chunk of Kratos’ core crystal that sits in Lloyd’s chest—

 

\- - -

 

Kratos stops suddenly at the persistent signal that taps itself against his core crystal. They’ve been on the road for about an hour, and the memories of things he thought were buried under 400 years of time still cling to Kratos, which means it takes him a second longer than normal to recognize the signal for what it is. By that point the signal—the _name_ —has repeated itself twice more; morse code tapped out along his ether.

_Anna, Anna, Anna._

“What is it?” Colette asks, the first to notice he’s stopped.

“A message,” he answers. “From Lloyd, or… whoever has him.”

That gets everyone else’s attention. Zelos stops first, then Anna, then Malos—who insisted on coming along, because he wasn’t going to let his daughter go on a rescue mission _without her blade_.

( _If there had been time to gather anyone else, they would have, but most of the rest of their companions are on other sides of the world, traveling on their own journeys, since it’s been around a year since their first together concluded._ )

Everyone stops and turns to Kratos, waiting as the message _tap tap taps_ itself out against his core crystal.

_Anna, it’s Myyah. Come get your kid._

“What the hell?” Anna says, after Kratos has finished relaying the message.

“You know them?” Zelos asks.

Anna shakes her head. “Never heard that name before in my life!”

“Well…” Colette looks between Anna and Kratos, fingers nervously tracing the scars on her own core crystal. “What should we do?” she asks. “Should we trust them?”

_I’ll send you the address. Are you ready?_

Kratos shudders at the borderline painful sensation of the taps, his ether trembling with the weight of the message. “They’re going to send the address whether we want them to or not, I think,” he tells his companions. “Do we have something to write it down on?”

“I do!” Colette says, dropping to her knees to dig into her pack.

Malos shakes his head disapprovingly. “It’s definitely a trap,” he warns.

“But it’s a better lead than just letting Kratos feel it out,” Anna argues. She nudges her blade playfully, a bright, hopeful smile in her eyes. “Besides, this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve walked in and out of a trap unharmed!” she reminds him.

Malos folds his arms over his chest and sighs, but his smile is fond. “Guess it isn’t,” he admits.

 _Are you ready_? the signal in Kratos’ core repeats.

Kratos doesn’t like this at all, but… He hates the idea of leaving Lloyd wherever he is for even a second longer than necessary much, much more.

So he looks to Colette, who’s poised with pen over paper. She nods.

Kratos reaches up and taps back on his core crystal:

 _Ready_.


	3. Chapter 3

Lloyd sits alone in a chair in a small room, restrained only by the wires in his arm that connect him to a computer—there’s no screen, so _he_ can’t see the results, but they’re being sent to Miang in the connecting room. He can see Miang through a pane of glass, and she can see him, and they can talk, even; there’s a speaker sitting in the wall just to the left of the glass, and it must have a microphone, too, and a little green light that blinks and blinks and blinks.

“Remind me what we’re doing, again?” Lloyd asks. He wants to pick at the wires in his skin, because they itch, because—

 _(Darkness illuminated by orange—green—ether lines, wires hooked into his ether, pulling,_ pulling _—_ )

“We're testing how your body reacts to ambient ether,” Miang replies, her voice high and clear through the speaker.

Rather than pulling at the wires, Lloyd fidgets with the device Miang gave him—a small cube that fits in his palm, each face of it featuring a different mechanism, whether it be a knob to fiddle with or buttons to click. ( _“It was your mother's,” Miang said, when she handed it over, which he's still not sure how to feel about, so—)_

—He focuses on Miang’s words; the oddity in them.

“There… _is_ no ambient ether in here,” Lloyd says, _click-click-clicking_ one of the buttons on the device. It’s nice to have something to do with his hands, actually.

He watches as Miang stares at him for a long, _long_ moment. _Blink-blink-blink_ goes the green light on the speaker. _Click-click-click_ goes the device in Lloyd's hand. Then Miang moves, fluid, like he said nothing at all. She leans on the console, towards him, or, to the window that separates them, body angled hungrily in his direction.

“I wanted to ask about my children,” Miang says.

Lloyd isn’t stupid.

“…Zelos and Colette?” he asks, knowing that’s who she means, even if the notion still doesn’t quite make sense, and is uncomfortable besides.

( _He reaches for them, habitually, even though he knows they’re gone. It’s so empty, without the stream of their ether in his veins, the hum of their thoughts under his skin. He click-click-clicks to try and fill the emptiness._ )

“Correct,” Miang says.

Lloyd shifts where he sits.

“What do you mean by children?” he asks.

Miang smiles, so proud she looks like she could burst with it. “Artificial blades only exist because of my research,” she declares. “So, in a way, I am the mother of all artificial blades.”

“Oh,” Lloyd says.

That’s… a pretty hefty claim. He tries to remember what Sheena’s mentioned about artificial blades, but is only able to return explanations on how ones without resonance—like Corrine—work, and various complaints about them being mistreated. He wonders if the mistreatment was Miang’s fault. Somehow, he doesn’t get that vibe.

_Click-click-click._

“But,” Miang continues, and her pride hits that wistful note again. “Zelos and Colette… the artificial Aegis project… That was something a little more special. I helped build them, and all of their siblings before them. They were just the only two that made it…”

Surprise rings like a gong in Lloyd’s stomach, loud enough he forgets to worry about how stale the air tastes in here.

“Siblings?” he repeats. “They have _siblings_!?”

Miang shakes her head. “ _Had,_ ” she corrects, gentle. Lloyd belatedly realizes she already said that, and winces preemptively, expecting reprimand, but none comes. Miang just keeps explaining. “Poppi was the first. Your mother _loved_ her. But she wasn’t what the Tethe’allan government wanted, because she couldn’t resonate with anyone, so they killed her. Your mother raised hell, she was so _furious._ ” Miang chuckles, and it’s fond, and it’s sad, and…

Lloyd isn’t sure if he should feel proud or horrified. He knows the woman Miang speaks of can’t actually be his mom, except—this? This is something he could see the Anna he knows doing.

_Click-click._

“And then, Ramsus…” Miang reaches up and touches the core crystal in her collarbone. “He was… unstable. There was… nothing I could do…”

Lloyd doesn’t know the blade she speaks of, not personally, but somehow hearing of his death makes his lungs tight. He tries to breathe deeply, to combat the emotion, but that’s difficult too, like each breath isn’t getting enough air into his lungs.

Maybe it’s not sadness that grips him.

_Click. Click-click._

“But Zelos and Colette… they were _perfect_ ,” Miang says. Pride colors her voice, and she smiles softly. Lloyd clings to her words despite the fog creeping into his mind, because those are his blades, his closest friends. “They were stable, and their resonance was flawless—perfect recreations of the original Aegises in every way.”

_Click. Click._

“And all they wanted them for was the _cannons_ —so they kicked me off the project, too.”

_Click._

“I never even got to see them.”

It’s a sad story, but it makes something tired and sick boil in Lloyd’s stomach, anger that he can’t quite grip. If she cared—if Miang _cared_ about them, the Aegises she calls her _children,_ then being kicked off the project alone shouldn’t have been enough to stop her from trying to save them. She had a hundred years. A hundred years to do something, _anything_ , and—

“You,” Lloyd begins, but it’s all lost to the whirling fog in his mind. “If you- you _really_ —!”

His vision blurs at the edges. His chest is so so so tight, and it hurts, it hurts. His lungs don’t want to work. Kratos’ core crystal in his chest pulses furiously, struggling to process and distribute ether through Lloyd’s veins like it’s supposed to but there is no ether, there is no—

“Lloyd!”

Miang’s voice, heard as if through water. His name is the only thing he can make out.

He can _feel it,_ as the little remaining ether in his blood tries to travel familiar pathways and fails, as connections that are supposed to meet to keep his body running are unable to. Everything in him is sluggish. Everything him burns with the exertion. He thinks if he really focuses he can feel his cells asphyxiate, atrophy—

Hands on his arms, wires yanked out of his skin.

His name, repeated, repeated, repeated.

Movement.

And then…

It’s gradual, much too slow. But a connection that was failing suddenly meets. And then another does. Ether trickles back into him like a dripping faucet. His starving body drinks it eagerly, eagerly.

When he comes to, his head and shoulders are propped in Miang’s lap, and she runs nervous, fussing fingers through his hair. Once he realizes his position, he jolts away from her, scrambling over hands and knees until he hits a wall—they’re out in the hallway, on the ground.

He still feels—really, _really_ sick, and the exertion of the sudden move sends him into another dizzy spell. _But._

“You nearly killed me!” Lloyd shrieks, tired heart hammering out a panicked song.

“I know,” Miang says. She looks regretful. Scared. Lloyd still keeps himself pressed against the wall, as far away from her as he can manage. “Believe me, that wasn’t my intention—”

“You _put me in a room devoid of ether!_ ”

“With every intention to pull you out before your levels got that low!” Miang counters, tone sharpened by her bitterness. He opens his mouth to tell her just what a _good fucking job_ she did at that, but she beats him to the punch, voice trembling with her horror as she explains: “Lloyd, it takes blade eaters _hours_ to even _begin_ to feel the effects of ether deprivation. Only- only _blades_ respond that quickly, that drastically.”

Lloyd’s heart drops into his stomach.

“What.”

Miang just nods at him, eyes wide as she looks him up and down, like there’s— like _he’s_ —

Lloyd crosses arms over his chest and scoots away from her, like that will stop her. Actually. You know what. He remembers where his room is in this building. Nothing’s stopping him from just—

Except he can’t even get to his feet. His vision swims, pain shooting through protesting limbs. He sits back down.

“Here.”

Miang starts to move towards him, but Lloyd puts up a hand to tell her to stop, glaring as hard as he can. His heart hiccups in his chest, anger and betrayal sliding down his throat.

“Don’t,” he says. “Just. _Don’t_.”

“It will be a while before you can walk—” Miang begins.

“Then _leave me here,_ ” Lloyd spits. “I’ll figure it out!”

Miang watches him for a long moment, then—saying nothing—she gets to her feet, and she leaves.

Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut and just tries to breathe. His chest still feels really, _really_ tight, and his head is pounding. There’s a sharp ache across his knees. Maybe he hit them, when he collapsed? Did he collapse? Or, maybe…

_Oh._

A shaky realization comes to Lloyd, because he remembers the crystal in his chest means he and Kratos share a life force, which means Kratos must have _felt all that._

Trembling in his haste, trying to remember how Miang did it, Lloyd reaches with shaky fingers to Kratos’ core crystal and taps out a message.

 

\- - -

 

_Dad._

 

\- - -

 

Someone’s calling his name.

 _“Kratos? Kratos!_ ”

He can barely hear it through the roar in his ears, the languid hiccupping of his ether. His core throbs persistently, achingly, starved for ether even though there’s plenty of ether around him. He drinks but it’s like he cannot drink enough. Old memories dredge themselves up in his veins.

_neon lights voices angry disappointed talking like he can’t hear—_

_“Doesn’t even last twice as long as a blade does. What was the point?”_

_“Maybe we should up the blood levels.”_

_no no no no no_

Distantly he registers grass against his knees rocks against his palms, the chatter of worried voices around him like water running over rocks in a stream. He tries to cling to it, tries to wrap his hands around the ether under his tongue. He’s in pain but he’s fine, he’s fine, hands find his shoulders—

_“Damn! He’s fighting back again!”_

_“Hold him down, then—”_

_hands on his body on his arms on his chest needles in his skin taking giving taking giving straps digging into his wrists his ankles the back of his head stings from how hard it hit the table_

_stop stop stop_

_STOP_

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me!” he hisses, shoving and wrenching away but. No one’s there. Maybe they already moved. Maybe it doesn’t matter. He’s free to move and he sure as hell isn’t going down without a fight not again not again not—

_That isn’t right._

Regret and shame slide down his throat but he doesn’t move doesn’t turn to see who he shoved in his anger and his fear. He feels like a taut wire. Everything under his skin is boiling. His crystal still aches like there’s not enough ether in it and he feels sick, sick, sick.

“Kratos, Kratos, hey, it’s alright,” Anna’s voice, persistent, gentle. He does what he can to latch onto it. “It’s alright, you’re safe, you’re free, _Kratos_ —”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Just tries to breathe.

More voices, but everything’s too foggy for him to make them out. Movement, suddenly, and his head shoots up to watch Anna, apologetic and hands raised, tread carefully in front of him. She stops some five feet back, hands still held up before her, palms open, clearly telegraphing she does not intend to touch him, does not intend to harm him.

“Sorry,” she says, as she squats down in front of him. “I wanted to be where you can see me. Listen, listen, you’re okay. You’re—fine, I mean, everything’s kind of shitty right now but you’re free, you’re safe.” She keeps repeating those things. They make logical sense. He feels safe enough that she isn’t going to move again when he pulls his eyes away that he looks briefly up towards the sky. Bright and clear. Not a ceiling. Not a cage.

Anna keeps talking, a welcome distraction, reminder that he isn’t in Kvar’s fucking lab.

“We’re on our way to save Lloyd, who got kidnapped, and that’s the shitty part, but—no one here’s gonna hurt you, Kratos. It’s just me and Malos and Zelos and Colette. The year’s, uh- fuck, what year is it.”

“2519,” Malos supplies, distantly, helpfully.

“2519,” Anna repeats, nodding. “The great war ended some four hundred years ago, and they finalized the peace treaty that should keep us from having any more wars—at least, any _Aegis_ related wars—about six months back. And…” She keeps rambling, keeps talking, like she does, like she always does, and Kratos holds it in shaky hands and tries to breathe to the rhythm of it. Usually it helps. He remembers it helping, before. He still feels like he can’t think, like there’s not quite enough ether in his veins, but—“…gonna rescue Lloyd, and it’s gonna—”

_Lloyd._

_Dad?_

A signal, tap-tap-tapped out on his core crystal.

Everything else in the world fades away, for a moment. Ether connects in his core, and then in his bones, in his veins, flowing under the thundering _thump thump thump_ of his rogue heart. Kratos zeroes in on the signal. With shaking fingers, taps back in question:

_Lloyd?_

_Am OK,_ Lloyd sends back, The signal is slow, and trembling, nowhere near precise. _Tired. Alive._

That’s good. That’s good. That’s all that matters.

 _U OK?_ Lloyd asks.

Kratos is not, not by any accounts, but Lloyd is likely only worried about his safety. If- if the ether did _that,_ then it must have been on Lloyd’s end. They were so close to… _Fuck,_ they were so close to dying. He just needs to let know Lloyd that he’s _alive._

 _Fine,_ he sends to Lloyd. The rest of the signal blurs to his trembling hands and roiling mind. Old images try to play back in his mind again and he pushes them down, furious, sick to his stomach. He should get off the ground.

“Kratos…?” Anna asks.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Put the memories in a box, shove the box into a corner of your mind where you can’t reach it, where the memories inside can’t reach you. It’s okay, Kratos. You’re okay.

He should answer Anna.

His voice is trapped somewhere in his toes, so he raises his hand and signs, shaky:

_Message from Lloyd._

“Ohhh,” Anna says, understanding. Thankfully, he was able to re-teach her enough sign in the past sixth months that basic communication will be possibly. She leans a little forward, eager with her concern. “Is he okay?”

Kratos nods. _He’s fine,_ he answers.

“What about you?” Anna asks, cautious. “Scale of one to ten?”

Kratos thinks it over for a minute. Ten’s a panic attack, and he’s… he’s not _that_ anymore. He’s. Better, now, especially since his ether is functioning properly again. But he’s still… nowhere near great. He flexes his fingers for a moment, opening and closing his hands a few times as he finds his answer. Despite no one touching him he feels overstimulated, skin about ready to rip itself off his body, but at least his thoughts are _coherent,_ even if all he can really think about is how much he hates all of this, hates how sick to his stomach he feels, and— _Lloyd,_ shit, they have to help Lloyd.

“Kratos?” Anna prompts.

 _Eight,_ he answers, somewhat uncertain, not really caring. He shifts his weight, goes to push himself to his feet but has to stop, the pressure of even his own hand on his knee more than he can take at the moment. Still, his intent is clear enough that Anna jolts in alarm.

“Hey, hey, don’t move yet, holy shit, an eight’s really high,” Anna warns, and she looks like she _wants_ to move forward to stop him, for a second, but she doesn’t. Kratos loves her for that. “We can- we should really take a moment for you to—”

 _We have to get to Lloyd,_ Kratos counters, not needing to talk over her at all since he’s not talking. Anna splutters to a halt two signs into his sentence, then glares.

“I mean, yes, but I don’t- I don’t want you to _push_ yourself, Kratos…” she says, and it’s sweet that she’s concerned but _their son is in danger._

 _Lloyd’s more important,_ Kratos insists. He takes a second to steady himself, shift his weight in a way that he can brace himself on the ground as he stands. He manages to get all the way up, this time. _We need to hurry._

Anna stares up at him, and she sighs, but she doesn’t look like she’s surrendered, exactly. Her jaw’s set like she’s determined, eyes glint like she’s got an idea. She tilts her head, playful.

“Alright,” she says. “But I want you to hear me out, first.”

Fine. He can do that. He raises his eyebrows, expectant.

“I think you should resonate with me,” Anna says.

The suggestion takes him so thoroughly by surprise that Kratos splutters—it’s not enough to get words out of him, but it’s enough to get an incredulous kind of wheezing out of his lungs. What. _What_. He doesn’t have enough presence of mind to think about this. Every ounce of his mental energy that isn’t consumed by choking the life out of old memories is devoted to worrying about Lloyd. But. _But._

This is ridiculous.

 _No,_ he says.

“Hear me out,” Anna requests.

Kratos bristles. He doesn’t want to do that. He wants to keep moving. He wants his brain to stop feeling like it’s taken residence some ten feet outside of his body. But. Anna… wouldn’t have suggested _this,_ not _now,_ unless she thought she had a good reason for it. Maybe. Maybe he should at least hear her out.

Words are still difficult, and even if he could sign to tell her to go ahead, he jerks his head instead, silently giving her the go ahead to get on with it.

“I was just thinking,” Anna says slowly, carefully, still squatting on her heels and looking up at him. “That whatever happened, just now… I mean, if we know Lloyd’s exact location, then it’s unlikely his kidnappers dragged him through somewhere with dangerously low ether just coincidentally, right? Between this and… everything else you’ve felt through the pain share… they’re probably—” She stops a second, the words clearly uncomfortable on her tongue. “Probably- probably trying to figure out what Lloyd is. Or maybe they’ve already figured it out, and are trying to figure out how he- how—”

She inhales, sharp and wheezing, then turns her head away. She looks like she’s going to be sick. It’s enough to strike concern in Kratos’ core, enough to drag his dissociating brain a few feet closer to his body.

“This was the _last thing_ I wanted to happen to Lloyd,” Anna whispers, miserable, furious. “And I’m- I’m _terrified._ That they’re really- _really_ gonna hurt him. Which- which is why we need to move fast, I know,” she interjects, before Kratos can even think of opening his mouth or raising his hands to sign again. “We’re moving as fast as we can but we’re still three days away on foot but there _is_ no faster transportation that we could _afford_ never mind _get our hands on in time_ and—”

 _What does this have to do with us resonating?_ Kratos interjects, confused.

“Oh, shit, right, I got sidetracked.”

Anna rubs her hands over her face. Kratos thinks, briefly, about sitting on the ground with her—but he feels much, _much_ better standing, so he stays where he is. Discreetly, he takes a look to see where the rest of their companions are. It seems they’ve all elected to move away a little, to give him and Anna some privacy. Kratos… actually appreciates that, a little.

“Just,” Anna says, still looking sick to her stomach. Kratos is with her, there. “If they’re- if they’re _experimenting_ on Lloyd—it’s only going to get worse, you know?” She swallows, repeats, quieter, weightier: “You know?”

Kratos swallows along with her.

Yeah. He knows.

“So,” Anna says. “I was thinking… maybe resonating with someone would help drown out all the other noise in your head. Make it easier to stay grounded.”

Kratos recoils away from the idea. Sickness still clings to his bones, sickness and panic and the ghosts of a million other horrible things that despite all his years he will never, ever be free from. And maybe… maybe Anna has a point. Maybe the anchor of resonance—the one thing he never, _ever_ had when Kvar caged him, tortured him—maybe it _would_ help. But…

This skittish, terrified thing in his veins? That’s not something he has any right to inflict on anyone else.

 _No,_ Kratos tells her.

Anna scowls. “Why not?” she asks. Then she fidgets. “I mean, if you don’t want to, then I won’t make you, but—can you at least _think_ about it? I mean- if you’d rather be on the driver end, you can probably ask Colette…”

Kratos shakes his head, immediate, sharp. Resonating with Anna wouldn’t be so bad, because—she knows. She _knows._ She’s one of the few people he told, one of the few people who already understands the exact depths of what he was put through. But Colette? Zelos? Even if resonating with either of the Aegises is appealing, because then neither he nor Lloyd could be deprived of ether…

But.

Uncovering the reopened, oozing wounds in his core? Laying them bare for the Aegises to see? He can’t— He can’t _do_ that to them. They deserve better from him.

( _He knows that they are not children, that they are much older than they look, but…_ )

“Kratos, please,” Anna says. “If you really, _really_ don’t want to, just tell me, but. I’m tired of just sitting around and watching you suffer without _doing_ anything about it. And if we resonate… wouldn’t that help? Can’t we try?”

Kratos shifts from foot to foot, his muscles tight. She’s still… right. She still has a point. It would be nice to have something to cut through the sea of bad memories with. And… privately, Kratos has always thought about what it might be like to have Anna has his driver. Would it be such a burden? Certainly not for him. She could be a source of strength. An anchor in this storm.

But still: does he have any right inflicting the trauma in his core on her? Even if she is offering…

 _What if… this happens again?_ Kratos asks, his hands shaking enough that it’s somewhat difficult to sign it coherently. It doesn’t even occur to him that he didn’t properly articulate that by _this_ he means _everything_ about his reaction to what happened to Lloyd just now, but thankfully Anna seems to understand. _And then… it takes out the both of us—the_ three _of us—instead of just me? Isn’t that worse?_

“Then we end the resonance,” Anna says, simple. “No big deal.”

Kratos hesitates.

“You don’t have to, Kratos,” Anna tells him, and he loves her for that, loves her for that and the fact that she is still sitting on her heels as she is, not wishing to move too suddenly lest she startle her husband.

He takes a deep breath.

He wants to. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know.

 _What’s to say we even can…?_ he asks, nervous and afraid. The intimacy of resonance is a terrifying thing to initiate. Asking her to bear the burden of his trauma is a terrible thing to do.   _I’m… not a blade, not anymore._

Anna raises her eyebrows, taking this argument in stride. “What’s to say flesh eaters _can’t_ resonate with anyone?” she counters.

_A lot of people who’ve tried._

“Well.” Anna grins and puffs out her chest. “I think if any human’s gonna pull off resonance with a flesh eater… it _would_ be you and me, wouldn’t it? Considering, you know, reflection of god, reflection of his wife—”

Not this shit again. Kratos groans and rubs his hand over his face.

Anna laughs, delighted. “Hey, this literally isn’t even the first time we’ve broken the laws of reality together!”

 _Please don’t remind me,_ Kratos pleads.

Anna’s laugh this time is slightly closer to manic, pained. “It’s the truth, and we both gotta live with it!”

Kratos sighs. He wants to do this. He wants to. Why is she like this.

 _Okay,_ he tells her. _Let’s try it._

The joy that breaks on Anna’s face makes him forget anything else exists.

“Are you sure?” she asks, she double-checks, as she gently, slowly, pushes herself to her feet. “It’s… Are you really sure?”

Kratos nods.

“Okay. Okay!” Anna grins, wide, though she falters after a second. “Um. I _am_ going to have to touch your core crystal, though. Is that alright? Are you- I mean I can’t imagine you want to be touched right now…”

Oh, definitely not, but:

 _For this, I’ll be alright,_ Kratos assures her. He’s making the decision to let her, anyway, which makes it so much easier to bear. _Go ahead._

And then he drops his hands to his sides, and he waits.

The world’s just him and her, as she closes the distance between them—eager, bouncing with energy she’s trying to contain. Kratos and tries not to stand too rigid, too nervous. His ether thrums with anticipation. He hopes… this works.

“Ready?” Anna asks, raising her left hand.

Kratos nods, short, giving her the last permission she needs.

She touches his core crystal.

And he—he doesn’t know how to do this, exactly. He’s never consciously done it before, not in this lifetime. But. There are some things that a blade _can’t_ forget, and so the moment he thinks he wants to, old pathways fire up, coming to life under Anna’s touch, and—

His ether ties itself around her, suddenly, cleanly.

Kratos staggers a little under the weight of it. Anna’s burning triumph slides into his chest and, alright, _that’s_ perhaps the best thing he’s felt in a long time. But then her triumph meets the lingering fear in his veins, and her grin softens, breaks. She pulls her hand away from him, takes a step back, to give him space.

“Oh,” she says, soft, small. “Hey…” she begins, but can’t seem to find words to say. Her eyes are wide as she stares up at him.

Kratos flinches. He’s definitely better than he was a few minutes ago, but still pretty bad. He wonders how awful that fear tastes in Anna’s throat.

 _Sorry,_ he tells her.

It’s met immediately with frustration, fondness—a well of concern he could easily drown all the horrid things that cling to him in. ( _There’s something distant, too, like confusion, or maybe sharp concern—from Malos, probably. It’s not very strong. Maybe Malos is keeping a hold on it. Maybe Kratos is too distracted by Anna._ )

“No, no, don’t,” Anna says. “Don’t you dare apologize.”

He almost apologizes a second time, but clenches his fist and refrains.

Anna grins up at him, gentle but burning, as she takes their newly-established link and uses it to wrap him up in a cradle of endlessly patient, strongly burning love. The strength of it pulls a little laugh out of Kratos, a little lost but melting into it, because truthfully it’s hard to do anything else. The claws of fear around his core start to lose their grip.

“Did it help at all?” Anna asks, cautious, eager.

Kratos nods, immediately. He’s still not _great,_ but he feels more grounded, more here. And… even if he didn’t? Now that resonance sings between them, now that Anna exists as a burning presence underneath his skin, he admits that the last thing he wants to do is let it go.

 _I think it did,_ he answers.

“Hell yes,” Anna says.

 _Are_ you _okay?_ Kratos asks, nervous. _I know it’s…_

“I know what I signed up for, Kratos,” Anna counters, bright. “This is… It’s fine. Alright? It’s gonna be okay.” She promises this, fiercely, believing it with every inch of her soul. “Okay? We’re gonna save Lloyd, and then everything’s gonna be fine. _You’re_ gonna be fine.”

Kratos breathes, then finds he’s smiling more than he thought he was capable of right now, because he… he _believes_ her, and her determination is somewhat contagious.

After all, if she believes everything will be fine _that_ strongly, what choice does he have but to believe it, too?


	4. Chapter 4

For all the effort it took him to finally fall asleep, his sleep is at least peaceful enough.

Until he’s woken up by someone shaking him and calling his name, that is.

“Lloyd! _Lloyd_!”

First high-alert confusion strikes in his veins, then brief hope, then mild annoyance as his eyes finish adjusting to the artificial light and all he sees is Miang. He groans, a little, not wanting to deal with her or any of this shit and wanting to just go back to _sleep,_ but the impression of Miang he’s gotten in the past twenty-four hours is that she can’t really be slowed down when there’s something on her mind. He still glares at her and spits with more venom than necessary:

“What.”

Miang doesn’t really seem perturbed by his bad mood.

“I’ve just made the discovery of the century!” she declares, grinning delightedly.

Lloyd squints at her, propped up on his elbows, a half-second away from flopping back down and just ignoring her entirely but. There are certainly _worse_ things he could be doing right now, worse positions he could be in. Might as well humor her.

She doesn’t really give him a choice, anyway.

“I found the Origin strand!” Miang continues, without waiting to Lloyd to acknowledge that he’s listening, or cares.

Lloyd blinks.

“The what,” he says.

“Oh!” Miang seems surprised, for half a second, by his confusion. Then she laughs. “Sorry, sorry, I guess I shouldn’t just _assume_ you’ve taken a university level class on blade genetics, or have read any of my previous research. Let me catch you up.”

She clears her throat and sits down at the end of Lloyd’s bed, feet on the floor and her body twisted towards him. Lloyd shifts and sits upright the rest of the way, scooting back so there’s a reasonable distance between them.

“Okay, so,” Miang begins. “In every blade, in every _core crystal_ on this planet, there are four strands of incomplete DNA that are each absolutely vital to a blade’s existence.”

She speaks with carefully, with clear effort to make sure each word is enunciated properly, despite the clear passion for this topic that she could easily trip on. It reminds Lloyd a little bit of Raine—the spark, the breathlessness, the authoritative tone as she went off about architecture. Lloyd’s always thought Raine could have been a teacher, in another life. He wonders, briefly, if Miang ever was.

_(The answer: she was. She spent years gladly teaching her own research in Sylvarant, after Tethe’alla stripped her of her job and government clearance.)_

“Two of these DNA strands find their sources in the original Aegises,” Miang continues, and Lloyd hastily stops thinking about teachers. “That is to say, each original Aegis has one complete strand of these otherwise incomplete DNA strands—I forget which Aegis has what complete strand… the two strands are a set, after all.” She holds up two fingers, taps them against her opposite palm. “Together, they govern ether manipulation. Intake, output, so on. Without them, blades cannot resonate, cannot heal themselves, cannot create a weapon, or… do, well, any of the things we think of blades being capable of doing.”

“Really…?” Lloyd asks, doing his best to follow along. He doesn’t know much about DNA at all, but Miang’s explanation is easy enough to understand.

It’s just a lot to take in.

Miang nods, ever patient, entirely excited. “Yes!” she says. “It’s quite fascinating. And, for the Aegises, it makes sense, I think. After all, the Aegises helped build this world, so of _course_ their thumbprints are in every blade. It’s the other two strands that are a little more curious, especially since no one knew their sources. Not until today.”

“What do the other strands do?” Lloyd asks, quickly. He wants to know, and is pretty sure if he lets Miang start talking about her discovery, he won’t actually get to know until much later.

“Oh, of course,” Miang says. She doesn’t seem at all bothered by the interruption, which is kind of refreshing. “The Y strand—that’s the one still unaccounted for—governs…” She pauses a second, searching for the word. “Stability in blades, we think. Or perhaps lifespans. Without it, blades are lucky to live a day. If it is broken, blades are lucky to make it past a year. It deteriorates rapidly without an anchor such as resonance—which I assume was fixed, somehow, when the blade network was rewritten, though I haven’t had the time nor resources to look into the details yet…”

Miang trails off, face scrunched up in thought. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, playing absentmindedly with her fingers. Lloyd lets her, fidgeting a little himself. It… really is a lot to take in? He’s definitely not awake enough to process all of this, but he is intrigued by what he’s understood.

“Right,” Miang says, like she’s realigning her thoughts. She claps her hands together. “Anyway. The last strand is the Origin strand. And, Lloyd, the Origin strand is the most vital strand of the four. Without that DNA strand, a blade is nothing more than a glorified ether crystal. And I’ve _found its source_.”

There’s a fervent excitement in her voice. She leans in towards Lloyd.

“Yeah?” he asks, shifting uncomfortably under her intense gaze.

She reaches out and taps Kratos’ crystal.

Lloyd scrambles back away from the touch, hand flying up to cover the crystal as cold shock pours down his spine.

“That crystal,” Miang whispers, grinning from ear-to-ear, “has the complete Origin strand.”

Lloyd may not have understood everything Miang just told him, but he definitely understands that Kratos’ DNA is apparently _very_ important—on par with Mithos’ and Martel’s—and he almost wants to laugh at how incredulous the notion is.

“ _Kratos_ ’?!” he asks, squeezing at the stone.

“Yes!” Miang confirms.

“What’s so special about _him_?!” Lloyd asks. It’s just… his dad! Sure, okay, Kratos is the guy who stopped the first war, who wielded the original Aegises, but that… That shouldn’t make his _DNA_ important, right?

Miang’s grin is suddenly too sharp, has too much edge.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “But I’d _love_ to find out.”

Lloyd shivers. He remembers that Kratos is coming to rescue him, at least, along with Zelos and Colette ( _why wouldn’t they_ ) and… probably Anna. He wonders if he should tell them not to come. He doesn’t want to lead them into a trap just for his sake.

Sure, Miang’s being nice to _him._ But he’s the _bait_.

Lloyd clutches at his chest, trying to make himself breathe. Kratos’ crystal is very warm against his palm.

“Anyway, uh,” he says. “Was that? Um. Was that… all you had to tell me?”

Miang seems almost disappointed that he’s lost interest.

“Oh…” she says, slowly. She sighs. “Yes, it was. Except. Hang on…” She squints at him. “Did you say that crystal belongs to _Kratos_?”

“Uh. Yes?” Lloyd says, before it occurs to him that maybe that was a bad idea.

“Like… Kratos Aurion?” Miang asks. “The war hero?”

The sharp note of interest in her voice makes Lloyd _definitely_ think this was a mistake, but it’s too late to back out now, probably, especially since his mouth is already answering.

“Y… yeah,” he says.

Miang looks him up and down, squinting deeper. “What are you doing with _his_ core crystal?” she asks, carefully.

Lloyd fidgets where he sits, legs curling up to make himself smaller, pulling every inch of himself further away from her. He can _not_ tell Miang that Kratos is his dad. His parents made it very clear that if anyone found out he was a hybrid, it could be bad, _really_ bad, and he’s pretty sure he definitely doesn’t want Miang knowing the truth about him, given the technology she has, and how curious she is. But.

Well. A little truth won’t hurt.

“I mean,” he says. “We were traveling together. And I almost died. So he…”

He trails off. Miang knows how blade eaters work.

“Weird that he’d save _your_ life, though,” Miang counters. “Don’t get me wrong, even as the driver of the Aegises, you’re just… some kid. Offering to split your core crystal isn’t something you just _do_ for…” Interest paints itself across her tone. “Some… kid…”

Her eyes light with an idea. Lloyd swallows his fear as well as he can.

He should say something—anything—offer any explanation that isn’t _he’s my dad,_ but he can’t think fast enough, and Miang is getting to her feet.

“Lloyd, come with me,” she instructs. “There’s something I want to check.”

Lloyd wants to say no. But. Free as he is, in Miang’s care, he’s still pretty sure he’s not allowed to say no.

So.

He gets to his feet after her—she waits until she’s certain he’s going to follow before she moves—rubbing his right palm against his left shoulder, trying to do something about his nervous energy, trying to combat the chill he feels.

( _It’s not even actually cold in here._ )

“You, uh, won’t have to take any more blood samples, will you?” Lloyd asks, a nervous laugh lodged in his throat. He’s trying to lighten his heavy soul. Trying to distract himself. He hopes it’s just a joke, like he means it to be.

( _He doesn’t want to do more blood samples._ )

“Oh, no no!” Miang assures him. “I have more than enough samples of your DNA at this point. There was just something I forgot to check, earlier. Something that was… _really_ obvious, actually, but…”

“What was it?” Lloyd asks.

It’s like she doesn’t hear him.

“Your mother,” she asks, as they walk. “Was she excited, to meet Kratos? Did she meet him?”

Lloyd laughs at the absurdity of that question. Of _course_ Anna’s met Kratos. “Well, yeah, she’s met him,” he says before he thinks about it, too nervous and jumpy to do anything other than default to the truth in his distraction. He catches himself just in time, before he says anything about them being married, being his parents. He swallows. Squeezes his arm, frustration boiling under his skin. Asks, instead: “What makes you ask?”

“She was always fascinated with him,” Miang answers, plainly. She runs her hand along the wall as they walk.

Lloyd’s too busy reeling in the implications of _that_ to really notice when Miang pauses at a fork in the corridor and hesitates a second, like she can’t quite remember which path is the right one. He’s still not fully convinced Miang is talking about the same person, when she talks about his mom, but…

That’s a really weird coincidence.

Why would Miang’s Anna care about Kratos?

He’s still mulling it over by the time they make it to Miang’s office. (Well, he assumes it’s her office, anyway. It _looks_ like an office, though there’s two extra desks with computers on them besides hers, so maybe she shares it? Lloyd remembers she has a few blades—two, he thinks, he hasn’t seen them other than in passing so far—so maybe that’s who the other computers belong to.) Miang crosses the somewhat spacious room to the desk opposite the door, tapping the spacebar on her keyboard a few times to wake her computer up as she sits down in the desk chair.

Lloyd follows after her, lingering like an awkward ghost, not sure what else to do. He watches over her shoulder for a second, but ultimately gets distracted by the clutter on her desk. It’s controlled, but every available space is covered in… _something._ Open notebooks filled to the brim ( _one with lines and lines of DNA code, not that Lloyd recognizes it for what it is_ ). Sticky notes with hastily jotted—reminders, Lloyd guesses. The sticky notes litter the notebooks, the desk, the edges of the computer monitor.

On one note is written: _“high ether blood levels—CURE???”_

On another, a list of birthdays, including Zelos’ and Colette’s ( _even though blades don’t really think about birthdays the same way humans do_ ) and Anna’s. Lloyd squints at that one for a little bit, pretty sure it’s… wrong. He can’t remember the exact date of his mother’s birthday ( _they’ve only celebrated it once with him, to be fair!!_ ) but he’s positive that’s the wrong month, at least.

Another note: “ _tell Nova to do laundry_ ”

And another: “ _3 DNA matches for Anna??? the %s were weird LOOK THEM UP_”

Lloyd stares at that note for a while longer, not sure what exactly it means but curious, because it’s about his mom, and—his eyes flicker away, to the wall behind the desk, and are pulled in immediately because the wall is plastered with pictures. Up close, among photos of people he doesn’t recognize, he can see—Zelos and Colette. Pictures that look like they’ve been taken from newspaper clippings, Zelos’ all clearly staged for propaganda, Colette’s never getting within more than twenty feet of her. It makes Lloyd’s heart seize, a little, to see them like this, to see glimpses of the past they both hate so venomously. ( _Pictures collected carefully, obsessively, by a woman who never got to meet her children in person._ )

And then he sees the pictures of his mom.

There’s… a handful of them. Some of her alone. Some with Miang. A group photo with two other people. And…

They’re all, undeniably, Anna.

Her hair’s styled a little different, and she looks older by about ten years, ( _she has less scars, too, and no purple chunk of core crystal in her collarbone_ ), but… that’s her. It’s absolutely, definitely, her.

Lloyd stares, numbly.

There’s no way that woman in the pictures is his mom, not logically, not by any laws of nature, because his mom is _not_ over a hundred years old, and if she’d _helped_ build Colette and Zelos she would have _said something,_ but…

But…

“Something something coffee?” Miang says, and Lloyd pulls his gaze away to look at her. Based on what she says next, Lloyd gathers she was offering him some. “I think there’s still half a pot left, if you do.” She points to her right, Lloyd’s left, in the general direction of the little table that sits against the wall behind her, upon which there’s a coffee maker and some mugs.

“Oh, sure,” Lloyd says. He definitely needs the distraction right now, needs a reason to not look at those pictures on the wall any longer.

Miang holds up an empty mug to him, smiling politely. “Pour me some, will you?”

“Sure.”

He makes a mental note to ask her how she even likes her coffee as he heads over to pour it, then realizes it doesn’t matter when he reaches the table. “Oh, you’re out of cream,” he remarks.

“Yeah that’s fine,” Miang calls. “I don’t mind— _Oh._ ” Lloyd hears her swivel around in her chair to look at him, but doesn’t look up from his task of pouring. “Sorry, I know I need to get some. If you don’t want coffee now I understand, Anna wouldn’t drink it either if it wasn’t at least fifty-percent cream first.”

Lloyd laughs. “Yeah that sounds like- like, uh… like her…” he says, realizing halfway through what he’s saying and what it means. There’s no way he and Miang should _both_ know this, there’s no way it can be the same woman they’re talking about.

( _But his mom likes her coffee so full of other things it doesn’t even taste like coffee anymore, and…_ )

“Anyway I’m fine,” Lloyd says quickly, to distract himself from that thought. He bounces nervously, restless, uncomfortable. There’s only two other mugs over here and he has to assume they aren’t for him, so he takes one of the disposable cups that are also on the table. “Coffee’s coffee.”

He prefers it with a _little_ cream, just to take the edge off, but right now he couldn’t care less. He needs. _Something._ A distraction. Coffee he doesn’t quite like the taste of can be a distraction.

He brings the coffee back and Miang takes hers eagerly, immediately taking a sip. Lloyd wonders how much she's had, since this _smells_ pretty fresh. A glance at the clock in the lower right portion of her computer screen tells him it’s almost 3am. So, that's fantastic.

Lloyd hovers awkwardly as Miang goes back to watching her computer. It just says its calculating matches for… something, which isn't that interesting to watch, even if Miang seems enthralled. Uninterested in that, Lloyd hastily sips his coffee before he can stare at the photos on the wall again, using the coffee as the distraction he wanted it for. It tastes… okay. A little too bitter. He hopes he doesn't regret drinking it at this time of night.

Miang notices him, about then. “Oh, Lloyd, sit down, sit down!” she says, sounding like she regrets not making it clear he could earlier. “You can steal one of my kid's chairs, it’s fine.”

Honestly Lloyd hadn't even thought of sitting. He says something vague about it, moves to grab one of the other desk chairs—the desk he pulls it from is personalized, with knick-knacks and photos, but it has nothing on the siren call of the photos on Miang's wall—and rolls it over so he can sit by Miang.

Before he sits he makes up his mind. It’s definitely a bad idea, but he's too curious to not. So he reaches over and taps the group photo with his mother to draw Miang's attention to it.

“Who's this?” he asks, as he sits.

“Oh!” Miang brightens, a bit, as she pulls her attention away from her computer. She pauses to set down her coffee—there's an exactly coffee cup sized hole amongst the controlled clutter, where she places it with deliberate precision—then rolls a little closer to the desk so her arm will reach when she points. “There's myself and your mother, of course, and then Klaus—” she gestures to the man in blue with blonde hair that falls to his neck, “—and Galea,” she indicates the woman in red with her long silver hair pulled back. “At first, it was just the four of us on the artificial Aegis project. We were… really close.”

Sadness tints her voice, and her hand trembles, as she lets it fall.

She keeps speaking, wistful: “Your mother and I both specialized in genetics, which ultimately made artificial blades as they are possible. Galea specialized in robotics and artificial intelligence, which was useful at the beginning, when they only asked us for something that could mimic an Aegis in power, not something almost identical to a blade. And Klaus…”

She breaks off, eyes squeezed shut, like she's trying to capture a thought but can't quite. Leg fidgeting, heel bouncing, Lloyd sips at his coffee as he waits for her to find it.

“Ether,” Miang says, finally. “He specialized in ether—how it works, how it shapes our world, and so on. Very useful when one intends to create something that is not a blade but can manipulate ether as a blade can.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Lloyd says, laughing a little, though he’s uncomfortable. He can't quite place what he's feeling. Information about coworkers that the-woman-who-can't-be-his-mom once had. He can't decide if he wants to know it all or wants the exact opposite, but…

Miang seems happy, to talk about them, and seems to be a somewhat safe topic. So.

“What happened to them?” Lloyd asks.

“They were removed from the project some months after Anna quit, because my research had hit a point where their expertise was no longer necessary,” Miang answers, slowly. She carefully lifts her coffee in both hands and takes another sip. “Galea was removed first, but Klaus requested to be reassigned with her.” She looks a little smug, for a moment, as she drinks her coffee, but then her gaze goes distant, as she continues: “I… I _think_ they went on to make a few non-Aegis artificial blades, but I don’t… I don’t remember the names of…”

She trails off. She seems… deeply, _deeply_ troubled by this.

The silence is somewhat deafening, but Lloyd doesn’t know what to say to break it. He bounces his leg, and watches Miang’s face darken with regret, watches her mug tremble in her grasp. At first, Lloyd just assumes it’s from how hard she’s gripping it, but the longer he watches the more it reminds him of—Anna, any time she held something in her right hand alone, the way her fingers would tremble with the effort, no longer fit for the task.

Lloyd tries to shake the thought of his mom out of his head. It doesn’t help, when she’s staring out at him from the photos on the wall. He opts for drowning the thoughts in coffee instead.

“Maybe…” Miang says, to herself. She sets her coffee back down. Turns the mug so the handle’s facing parallel to her computer. “Maybe I wrote it down?” There’s something almost fervent, scared, in her quiet voice. Or maybe Lloyd’s imagining it. It is 3am. “I probably wrote it down…” Miang continues, glancing at the notebooks littering to her desk, then to her computer. “I _had_ to have—oh!”

She stops, eyes focusing on her computer’s screen.

Calculating complete, it says.

Fifty-percent match, it says.

Miang nearly leaps out of her seat. “A- _ha_! I _knew_ it!”

She’s grinning. Lloyd’s heart hiccups in his chest. He scans the screen for clues, but all he can really make out is she’s done a comparison of two people’s DNA? Oh. One of those is probably his, huh? And the other…

“Um,” Lloyd says.

Miang turns to fix her grin on him.

“Kratos Aurion is your father,” she says.

Fear grips Lloyd’s throat. He opens his mouth. Closes it. His mind spins for an excuse, cheeks flushing with his panic as he says: “What? C- Come on, blades can’t, uh, can’t have kids! Everyone knows that!”

( _He was never even supposed to be born. It’s hard to forget that, sometimes._ )

“Scientists only say it’s impossible because no one’s seen it happen,” Miang counters, still grinning. “And just because no one’s done it doesn’t mean it can’t be done!”

“That’s—” Lloyd protests, scowling. His eyes flicker towards the computer screen, then back towards Miang, feeling a little bit like a trapped animal. “That still sounds pretty impossible to me!”

Miang just shrugs. “Perhaps the circumstances behind your birth were unique,” she says. “Perhaps it’s something in your parent’s DNA— _ohhh,_ I really would love to meet them, now. There are so many things I want to ask.”

Her tone is wistful, but her smile too sharp, her eyes too hungry.

Lloyd squirms. Grips his coffee cup tight enough he dents the fragile paper. He remembers—

( _Anna, face dark—“Both countries were certainly capable of turning you into some kind of science experiment—”_

 _Kratos, and the flash of pain and sick fear and a million other horrible things that touched his face before he beat them all back down, the_ concern _in Anna’s voice when she realized she’d stepped on a nerve._

 _The discomfort, as Lloyd had watched, had realized that his father had been through so much more than he knew about, as he had to face his parents’ fear that the same could be done to him—_ )

“Kratos is _not_ my fucking dad!” Lloyd snaps, panicked. He bounces with his terrified energy, reaches for the first time all night for a link he knows isn’t there.

( _He wants to feel Zelos and Colette cradling his fear, wants to feel their strength pressed up against it._ )

“And what makes you say that?” Miang asks, sounding wholly unconvinced.

“It’s just- It’s impossible! He _can’t_ be my dad!”

She just raises her eyebrows at him, like she knows that’s not true, like she knows he doesn’t believe it is. Lloyd tries to make like Zelos and hide all his fear where Miang can’t see it, but he’s _not_ good with masks at all.

Lloyd swallows. Decides to say something, anything—

“Where’d you even- What even makes you think he is?” he demands of Miang.

“A child gets their DNA from their biological parents, Lloyd,” Miang explains. There’s something smug in the curve of her lips, but mostly she’s gone back to that teacher-like tone she’d had earlier tonight, her back perfectly straight in her chair. “Fifty percent from the mother, fifty percent from the father.”

Oh. Oh no.

Lloyd hastily tilts his head back and downs the rest of his coffee so Miang can’t see the horror that just crystalized on his face.

“I couldn’t find your father in any database when I looked, earlier,” Miang continues. “But my search didn’t include blades—of course it didn’t.” She laughs, just a little. “But… considering his crystal in your chest, and your mother’s fascination with him… Honestly, I should have checked Kratos’ DNA against yours much sooner. If Anna was going to fuck any blade…”

That final comment is more to herself than anything else, but.

“I,” Lloyd says. “That’s,” he says. He feels vaguely offended on his mom’s behalf, but it’s buried under piles and piles of horror and confusion, topped off with a cherry of grim certainty things are about to get very, _very_ bad.

Miang can’t know the truth.

But how’s he supposed to argue with cold hard science—

 _Wait_.

“It’s- are you sure it’s not just a blade eater thing?” he stammers. “Like! I’ve got Kratos’ core crystal in my chest! It’s been feeding me ether for a year now! Surely that’s gotta like, do- do _something_ to my DNA.”

The look Miang sends him is somewhat proud. “Well, you’re right,” she says. “Blade eaters _do_ have their DNA shuffled together with the blade that donated their crystal. But in reality it’s an inconsequential amount, something that would account only for a two, maybe three percent match in DNA. But _fifty percent_? That can only be explained if he’s your father.”

Lloyd opens his mouth. Closes it. Defeat creeps up his neck. He goes to set his empty coffee cup down on the desk, but sudden sharp look Miang sends him tells him he really better not, so he holds onto it instead, crushing it in his hands with his anxiety.

He doesn’t know what to say.

Is there anything to say?

Is there any point hiding it, anymore?

“Did you… not know?” Miang asks, suddenly, her voice very soft, immensely concerned.

Lloyd frowns, not understanding right away. Then he remembered he denied Kratos being his dad very fervently, so maybe that would be reason for her to think he actually had no idea about it. He sighs.

“I knew,” he tells her.

“Oh.”

“Just, y'know…” Lloyd laughs, shrugs, feeling helpless, restless. “Not like I really wanted to go around advertising that I'm a human-blade hybrid.” Anxiety kicks kicks kicks at his heart like a drum, echoes too loudly in his chest. He feels so small in the wake of it, and the smallness makes him angry. He starts ripping at the cup he holds, just to have something to do with his hands. They paper's thick but not thick enough, and tears in two easily. He tears and tears instead of looking at Miang, instead of thinking of being strapped to a table again— _she only did that once!—Once was still once too many!!_

He must be spending too much time around Zelos because his anger and fear bubble out of his throat as a laugh.

“You aren’t gonna, like, dissect me, are you?” he asks. It's a joke. It's not a joke. He pretends it's a joke.

“ _What_!?” Miang's voice pitches in horror. “No!” she insists, and her expression softens, her tone unbearably gentle. “Oh, Lloyd, no, of course not!”

She reaches out for him but he kicks against the ground so the chair rolls back out of her reach, muscles tight. He— _aches,_ for a hug, to be honest. But not from her. He wants Zelos, he wants Colette, he wants to be sandwiched between them, wants the warmth of their skin and the cradle of their resonance. He wants Kratos, wants his dad to hold him and tell him it's gonna be alright. He wants Anna, wants her to say she's never gonna leave him—

( _She stares down at him from the pictures on the wall._ )

Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.

Kick kick kick against the drum of his heart.

( _It's too loud, it's too empty._ )

Anxiety turns to anger as Miang looks at him, her expression so soft and so gentle and he—he _hates_ it, hates the fondness she keeps doling out for him. He's not her fucking kid. He’s just the guy she kidnapped. He's just—

“You're _Anna's son,_ ” Miang says, with too much love in the way she says it. “I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.”

He's just the son of a woman Miang might know better than he does ( _he's only known his mother for a year, after all!_ ) and that makes his blood boil, too. How weird, how foreign, for that to be the thing Miang defines him with even though he’s spent all of the life he remembers being something else. Ugh. _Fuck._ He feels too wound up, like he needs to move or he's gonna die. The coffee was a mistake. All of this was a mistake.

Kick kick kick goes the drum in his chest, pounding out anger and fear until it makes him sick.

“You can trust me, Lloyd, really,” Miang continues, trying to soothe what she thinks is wrong. The worst part is Lloyd thinks he _can_ trust her not to hurt him, but he doesn't want to give her that trust, doesn't want to give her anything.

He gets out of his chair. He's not sure what he's gonna do now that he's standing but he's got this ripped up coffee cup so he takes that over to the little trash by the little table and tosses it in. Now what? He can't sit back down. He can’t just leave.

He could just leave. He doesn't owe Miang anything.

Not that he could go anywhere other than the room she gave him—like he's her guest and not her fucking prisoner!—but he doesn't have to stay and put up with _this_ bullshit.

“Lloyd?” Miang asks, and she sounds so concerned, like a mother asking after her child, and he doesn't know why that makes him so angry he's gonna be sick but it does. He keeps his back to her and breathes through his teeth, tries to decide what he's gonna do. He wants to take the coffee pot and throw it, for a hot second, but no no no he's not gonna do _that._ “Did I say something? What did I say?”

He rounds on her. “You fucking kidnapped me, is what you did!” he spits.

Breathe, Lloyd. You need to breathe. You need to leave. Things are always so much bigger and harder when you haven't gotten enough sleep, and you have _not_ gotten enough, not after the day you've had, so you need to stop and find the space to calm down before you do something you regret—

Except Miang probably deserves something like that, doesn't she.

Especially because her concern hardens, eyes going cold, even as she tries to paint her words with an apologetic tone.

“Lloyd, please, you have to understand,” she begins.

He does understand, and he thinks it's dumb as shit!

“If you wanna see my mom so bad, then maybe you should talk to her, instead of waiting around for her to come to you!” Lloyd shouts. ( _He wishes he'd known that had been an option for him, all along._ ) “I can literally tell my dad right now—We can meet up, somewhere. And that'll be…” He opens and closes his fists a few times, wrestling down his rage. ( _Breathe, try and think logically, that's what Kratos would tell him._ ) “Better. You know? If they have to come all the way here to save me they're gonna be pissed, but maybe if—”

He doesn't get as far as formulating an if. Miang cuts him off with a sharp:

“No.”

Her eyes are dark. She trembles.

“No,” she repeats, but instead of conviction all Lloyd hears is fear. “No, no, no. I have waited too long, have come too close, to mess this up _now._ I can't— I- I _won't—!_ ”

“Uh,” Lloyd says.

“Mom?” comes a new voice.

Lloyd spins, somewhat embarrassed, having forgotten briefly that there was anyone besides him and Miang in this building.

The blade standing in the doorway is tall, built like a wisp that’ll be blown away any second. Their face is sharp, chin angular, and their long silver hair is currently worn loose. They’re dressed in what Lloyd _thinks_ are pajamas—though honestly those clothes are way too fancy to tell—and the glow they cast with their violet-pink ether lines and core crystal is close enough to the glow Colette casts that for a moment it makes Lloyd ache.

“Nova!” Miang says, and she seems to snap back into herself. She sounds delighted. A little embarrassed. “Hey, sweetheart, is something the matter?”

Nova takes one look at Lloyd, decides he doesn't matter, walks past him to Miang—to their mother.

“Mom, it's like 4am,” they scold, gently. “Why are you still awake? You know that's only going to make it worse…”

“Yes but Nova, look, you'll never believe what I found—”

It’s so soft and it’s so intimate and for some reason it sets off something slightly envious and sad in Lloyd’s veins. The gentle way Nova argues with Miang, coaxing her away from work. The way their hands find her shoulder and Lloyd _aches._ Maybe he just misses his own family. Maybe he just wants to go home.

( _Maybe he wants to stop seeing his mother’s face staring at him from the wall._ )

Maybe he should say something, continue that thread he started, but something here feels forbidden. Like he’s not allowed to interrupt. It’s not his place. He doesn’t quite fit. He doesn’t quite—

( _His mom and Lora laughing to themselves and he is allowed to interrupt, he_ is, _but he shouldn’t interrupt, he shouldn’t interrupt_.)

You know what it doesn’t fucking matter.

If Miang doesn’t want to make her life easier by working with him, then fine. Fine! That’s none of his business. If his parents get here—and they _are_ coming, Kratos said they were!—and they decide they don’t want anything to do with Miang ( _and why would they!_ ), that’s not Lloyd’s fucking problem, is it?

It’s fine. It’s _fine._

Lloyd leaves. He turns on his heel and he leaves.

He’ll just go back to bed.

( _It's not fine._ )

It's fine.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s somewhat rare for the both of them to go into the dreamspace _together,_ in truth, but it’s been somewhat difficult to—or _want_ to—pry herself away from her brother, so Colette and Zelos step into the dreamspace hand-in-hand that night.

( _They both feel Lloyd’s absence greatly, and so they cling all the tighter to each other_.)

Mithos and Martel are already waiting for them. Mithos, even in the dreamspace, is still working with the network, which means the image of a grassy hill that Colette paints on reflex is almost immediately interrupted. The grass and the hill remain, but the sky goes dark, filled with pinpricks of rainbow that sit much closer than stars. Faint trails of pale ether connect all of the lights—nodes of the network.

“Are you _still_ up there?” Zelos calls to the other Aegis.

Mithos isn’t much higher than them, really, the dreamspace allowing abstractions in reality. Still, Mithos’ feet hang on level with Zelos’ face, gradient blue-green wings holding him as he moves from one node to the next.

“Again!” Mithos protests.

“Still,” Martel corrects. She sits on the ground and watches him, sending him a cheeky smile as he glares down at her.

Colette laughs, a little, but even the fondness she feels is not enough to drown out her worry for Lloyd, and it’s definitely not enough to drown the guilt that slides into her from her link to Zelos. There’s a lot of reasons Zelos feels guilty, regarding Mithos. Colette squeezes his hand and sends him a silent signal that it’s not his fault, morse code passed between them like breathing, but Zelos doesn’t respond.

( _Worry and furious it’ll-be-fines play on constant loop between them, as they fret after their driver._ )

Zelos grumbles something and drops Colette’s hand, then pushes his hair out of his face before he sets his hands on his hips.

“Any luck?” he asks of Mithos.

Mithos scowls. It’s a deep-set scowl that darkens his pretty face.

“No Lloyd,” he says. “Or…” He shifts through the network, wings flapping idly as he moves from one point to another. There’s a node, Colette can see, that doesn’t tie directly to the network like the rest do. Mithos cups the red of its glow in his palms. “I found him, but I can’t connect. And, believe me, I’ve tried everything.”

“Absolutely everything,” Martel echoes, playful. Mithos shoots her another glare. Martel sends Colette a look like _hey, you haven’t been in here with him for the past twenty-four hours._

Colette hops into the air, her own wings—perfectly pink, now—catching her as she stops beside Mithos. She reaches out and he moves his hands, so she can take the node instead. It’s warm and bright under her fingers, and—she’d recognize the signal anywhere. Definitely, _definitely_ Lloyd.

She tries to ping the node. No luck.

“I’ve tried that already,” Mithos shoots at her, scowling. Up close, he looks more tired than he does frustrated. Colette wonders how much of his bite is just exhaustion.

She shrugs at him, though, trying to act casual. “I just wanted to see,” she explains. She had to try, to see if it worked, even if she knew it wouldn’t.

There’s… really no reason to stay here and keep holding Lloyd’s node in the network—she’s… surprised he _has_ a node, actually, but maybe that has something to do with being a hybrid—but Colette stays anyway.

 _You’re ridiculous,_ Zelos shoots at her, silent.

 _You’d do the same,_ she sends back.

Mithos twists amongst the network, running his hands over the various nodes that surround him, fleeting touches that each make his scowl darken and darken. “I’ve tried to connect with blades around him, to see if I can learn anything, but I can only access their dreams,” he continues, voice sharp and quick. “And… it’s hard to tell if these are even blades that would know anything about Lloyd. The network isn’t actually laid out by location—it’s an abstraction. So just because the blades are close to Lloyd here, doesn’t mean they are _physically_ …”

“You don’t _have_ to look,” Zelos calls. His voice his tight and the signals he sends Colette are tight as well, frustration and guilt and worry— _for Mithos or for Lloyd?_ —boiling in his veins. The grass under his feet and around him starts to turn yellow.

“I’m worried too!” Mithos shoots back.

“Yeah but—that’s a _lot_ of blades! You can’t check _all_ of them!”

Her brother sounds… Colette isn’t sure, but she doesn’t like it. She lets go of Lloyd’s node and lands next to Zelos, finding his hand and squeezing it again. The grass remains dead, but that’s okay.

She tries to tell him Lloyd’s going to be okay, too.

It bounces off against a wall of anxiety.

Colette squeezes his hand tighter.

“I can try—hey!” Mithos’ boasting is cut off when Martel stands and grabs him by the ankle, yanking him gently out of the network. The wings save him from a graceless fall, but he still stumbles a little, scowling at his sister. “ _Martel!_ ” he spits. “What was that for!?”

“You need a break,” Martel insists.

“I’m fine!”

“You are not.” Martel pulls out her wings—they’re identical to Mithos’, now—and hops into the air to start sorting through the network herself. “I can take over for a little while,” she explains.

Zelos watches her with horror. “What? Now _you’re_ going on about—It’s pointless!!” Colette’s positive if she wasn’t holding his hand, he would have thrown both of them up in the air. “There are _way_ too many blades to check, and—what are we gonna do, if we find one who knows where Lloyd is, anyway? What’s the point! We already know where he is, we can already get messages to him—”

“But maybe they’ll know something he’s not telling us,” Martel counters. “Or maybe- I don’t know. They could give us a clearer picture of the situation, that’s for sure. Or perhaps we could convince them to let Lloyd go.”

“But—”

Colette interrupts him, with a shake of her head.

 _It makes them feel like they’re helping,_ she tells him.

Zelos sighs.

“How’s Kratos?” Mithos asks. He’s sitting on the ground, now, one knee up and his elbow resting on it. The clench of his fist tells Colette he’s worried more than his tone does.

“He’s doing okay,” Colette answers. Okay is relative, and Mithos and Martel probably know the truth of what he’s dealing with, but it’s still not her secret to share. She sits down on the grass across from Mithos, pulling Zelos down to join her. They end up sitting with their knees touching, Zelos pulling Colette’s hand into his lap. His thumb runs over her knuckles, the action soothing for the both of them.

“We were… really worried,” Mithos admits, ducking his head down. “He and Lloyd both almost went offline.”

“Ether deprivation,” Zelos explains.

 _Worry worry worry_ is sent back and forth between Zelos and his sister. Colette breathes around it as well as she can. ( _The almost-fear in Anna’s tone, the “They’ve probably figured out what Lloyd is,” followed by a grim but certain: “It’s only going to get worse from here—”_

 _Worse for Kratos? For Lloyd? Did it matter?_ )

“It’ll be okay,” she says, as much for her own sake as for her brother, for Mithos, for Martel, who still listens. “We’re almost to where Lloyd is.”

“It’ll be at least two days,” Zelos argues.

He squeezes her hand too tight. Colette breathes.

( _The good news, about Lloyd’s captors being interested in him being a hybrid, is that they probably aren’t going to kill him, at least._

 _I’m not sure that’s really better,_ Zelos argues, and Colette squeezes his fingers.)

“It’ll be okay,” Colette repeats.

“See, _this_ is why we’re looking,” Mithos begins. “Because we have to—”

“Oh!” Martel says.

And the dreamspace shifts, violently. The network remains, as does the patch of grass that they’re sitting on, but the rest of the dream around them solidifies into one single image as if projected on a screen—the image is a somewhat dim hallway, and there’s a sense of movement about it, like the source capturing the image is walking. There’s a distant sound of voices, echoing in whispers. All four Aegises stare, and then the image abruptly goes black, and Martel jolts a little where she is.

Mithos gets to his feet, squinting up at his sister. “What was that?”

“I… think…” Martel begins, but it takes her a minute to formulate a thought. “I think that was what the blade was seeing,” she says. “I’m not quite sure how I did it, but I think I established a visual connection. Let me see if I can do it again.”

She grabs the node in her hands once more.

It takes a second, but the visual connection reestablishes. The image of a moving hallway paints itself over the dreamspace again, way too big and somewhat surreal. Martel does some fiddling until the image settles itself into the proper size. There’s a door that the blade’s approaching. The voices continue—too distant and distorted through the dreamspace’s filters to make out, but:

 _Is that Lloyd or am I imagining it,_ Zelos asks, silently, perhaps not wanting anyone but Colette to hear his hope.

Colette hesitates. _No I think it is,_ she answers, though.

The blade reaches the door at the end of the hallway, and they open it, and—

There’s Lloyd.

Colette feels Zelos’ pulse hiccup at the sight of him—though relief and hope burn in her own core so she really can’t judge. Lloyd looks _fine,_ not injured, he’s standing which means he must be well, and—she _missed_ him, she missed him so much, she wishes she could touch him but this is a dream.

And.

Lloyd’s upset.

She almost misses it, because the blade they’re watching through only looks at him for a second before they turn away, more focused on the other woman in the room—Lloyd’s captor? It’s hard to say, hard to care, because Colette has only seen Lloyd that angry, that distraught, a few times before. The sight now shakes her to her core.

He’s okay but something’s wrong, something’s _wrong_.

“Look at Lloyd again, you bastard,” Zelos grumbles.

“What was that on the wall?” Mithos asks, squinting, but the blade’s eyes have already shifted away. Colette tries to see if she can see—she can’t, they’re all seeing the same image—but she gets distracted by the woman the blade’s talking to, anyway.

There’s something… familiar, about the woman. She’s not sure what. Just that it’s there, in her veins, when she looks at that face. It’s there, and it calls her, and she cannot deny it, even if she cannot describe it, either.

( _Zelos squeezes her hand like he feels it, too._ )

“What are they saying…” Martel mumbles. “Hang on.”

She fiddles with something, and then the distortion on the voices clears up, until they can hear the conversation.

“ _Mom, please, you should really go to bed.”_ —they can’t see who’s talking, but the way the signal is received makes it clear to all of them that it’s the voice of the blade they’ve established a connection with.

 _“I promise, I will, but look—I’ve found the Origin strand_. _”_

The connection tremors, Martel’s hold loosening for a second in her surprise.

“The what,” Mithos says.

“Like, the Architect…?” Colette whispers.

A noise. The blade looks up from their mother ( _Colette knows, with no uncertainty, that that is their mother_ ) just in time to see Lloyd leave.

Zelos groans. “Oh, come on, now what’s the point,” he says. Martel shushes him, but he ignores her, moving onto his next train of thought. “Though I guess that tells us his captors aren’t too worried about letting him have free reign of the place, at least—not that it makes a difference. Bird in a gilded cage is still a bird in a cage.”

“Zelos!” Martel scolds, a little louder. “Hold on, I think this might be important.”

He shuts his mouth. The image they’re all watching shifts, settles on a computer screen displaying—is that a DNA strand?

“ _I’m sorry, you found it WHERE?”_ comes the blade’s voice.

“ _You’ll never believe it. Kratos Aurion’s core crystal.”_

“What,” Mithos says.

“Kratos’…?” Colette repeats.

“ _The- the ORIGIN_ _strand?”_ the blade asks, for clarification. The Aegises all only wish they understood what that is.

“ _I know, right? I was surprised, too!”_ the woman says.

_“Isn’t he just- he’s just a regular blade, isn’t he?”_

_“Well, we’re going to find out when he gets here!_ ”

Martel breaks the visual connection. The dreamspace goes dark of everything except the network’s lights, and then whiteness takes it over, painting a small room with white walls and harsh neon lights overhead, a room only just big enough for the four of them to comfortably stand in. The scenery drags out dread from Colette’s stomach. But it doesn’t terrify her as much as the fact it’s here at all, and the way Martel and Mithos have both gone very, _very_ pale.

“Kratos can’t go,” Martel whispers.

“What?” Zelos says, not following.

“You can’t- you can’t let him anywhere _near_ that woman,” Martel insists, trembling as she drops out of the sky to be on the same level as the other three Aegises.

“Sis,” Mithos protests, quiet. “It might not be… I dunno. That bad?” At Martel’s sharp glance he fidgets. The whiteness of the room seems to get a little brighter, a little harsher. “We don’t even know what she was talking about, or what it has to do with Father, if it has anything to do with Father—”

“Forget Father!” Martel snaps. “You heard what she said she’d do to Kratos!”

“She didn’t say anything,” Colette counters, before she thinks about it.

That takes some of the wind out of Martel’s sails, but none of her defensive posture. “She certainly threatened it!”

“She threatened nothing,” Zelos argues. His tone is mostly confused, but his words make Colette feel a little better about where she’s fallen on this matter.

It’s not that Martel is wrong, to be scared. But that woman has barely given her a reason.

Mithos looks between the other three Aegises, moves slowly to stand near his sister. “I… didn’t like that look in her eyes, though, or that smile,” Mithos says. His voice shakes, and he scowls, but he seems certain. “And—whatever this thing is, she’s talking about, if Kratos is part of the puzzle… Come on.” The look he sends at Colette and Zelos is sharp. “We all know humans would gladly sacrifice blades in the name of research.”

“Not all of them are like that,” Colette and Zelos argue, in perfect unison.

( _Honestly, Colette isn’t so sure why she says it. She knows it’s true—not all humans are bad, look at Lloyd, look at Sheena, look at Seles, look at Botta—but. The conviction in her chest is fleeting, like grasping at something she only just understands_.)

Mithos sends her a funny look. So does Martel. Colette wilts, a little, as does Zelos.

“Most good humans aren’t also the mad scientist type,” Mithos argues.

“ _And_ this is the human that kidnapped Lloyd,” Martel adds. “Are you really going to defend her so quickly? If she was willing to kidnap Lloyd, just imagine what she’d be willing to do to a blade—”

Martel has a point.

Colette still finds protests leaving her mouth.

“Lloyd didn’t look hurt,” she says.

Zelos nods. “That’s true,” he agrees. “Sure, he looked kind of pissed, but—That’s different from being hurt.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t have a reason to hurt Lloyd,” Mithos counters. He starts to say more, then glares, glares at all three of them, like he’s decided better of what he _was_ going to say, and is now trying to formulate a new thought. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Sis, I doubt we can stop Kratos from going. We’ll just have to warn him.”

“We can do that,” Colette says. That seems reasonable.

“Fine,” Martel relents. “I’ll try talking to that blade I connected with—I think it will have to wait until they’re asleep, but… Maybe we can figure out what’s going on, know what to expect.”

“Figure out that woman’s motives, or if there’s anyone other than Lloyd to save,” Mithos agrees. ( _Colette, for some reason, highly doubts that there is anyone besides Lloyd._ ) “This way we can send you guys in with a plan— _especially_ since the stakes look like they’re are a lot higher than we thought they’d be.”

The dreamspace shifts, the harsh whites melting into gentle blues and greens as the grassy hill Colette favors so much returns, and with it, some of the tension ebbs away.

“We’ll tell Kratos in the morning,” Zelos says.

“Yeah,” Colette agrees. “Thank you guys for looking. We really do appreciate it.”

Martel nods, determined, though still clearly worried. “I’ll tell you what I found tomorrow night, when we meet up again,” she says.

“Travel safe,” Mithos adds, his smile soft. “Tell Kratos we love him.”

Colette promises they will, and hand-in-hand she and Zelos step back into the waking world.

Colette opens her eyes to darkness, darkness of a starry-sky overhead, illuminated gently by Zelos’ ether lines and her own. Her face is just inches from Zelos’, because that’s how they fell asleep. He’s blinking his way into the waking world, as well.

It’s still too early in the morning to wake up, so they’ll let Kratos sleep, and probably go back to sleep themselves in a second, but.

First, Colette grips Zelos’ hands, and smiles at his face.

“Lloyd’s okay,” she whispers.

( _He was upset, and that makes her worried, but he was not injured, and seeing his face alone has healed scars of worry from her soul._ )

Zelos squeezes her hands back, grinning.

“Lloyd’s okay,” he repeats.


	6. Chapter 6

Lloyd sits alone, again, in another small room in another chair, restrained again only by the wires in his arms that connect him a device that’s projecting information about his heartrate and ether levels to the adjacent room. He’s in a _different_ room from last time, though the setup is the same. The main difference between the two rooms is this one’s populated with growing ether crystals—all purple, though some of them gradient towards blue—and the ether levels in here are so high that honestly, if he were human, he’d probably be dead by now. Lloyd counts himself lucky that he’s _not_ human, but…

Well, it’s a little easier to confront this fact, now that he knows the truth. Still… The difference between _knowing_ he’s immune to ether poisoning and the _reality_ of the fact he’s been in here three hours and he’s absolutely, one-hundred percent fine…? It’s a lot to wrestle with.

( _He’s not a human. He’s not a blade._

 _He was never meant to exist, but here he is._ )

Lloyd sighs and closes the book Miang let him borrow, because he hasn’t really begin paying much attention to it. The giant robots were cool, when the book was just about that, but then it started pulling some weird stuff about genetics, and reincarnation, and—well, Lloyd can see why Miang’s into this, but he is _definitely_ over it. He puts it back on the ground and picks up the fidget toy that had apparently once been his mother’s, pushing his thumb against the analog stick and rolling it in circles. He’s grateful that Miang has every intention of letting him keep this thing, even though it’s also _incredibly weird_ to be grateful for a gift from the woman who _kidnapped him._

Still. Having something to do with his hands is nice, while he lets his thoughts idle.

Except it’s not ten seconds after he puts the book down that he becomes distinctly aware of the wires in his arm, again. He’s mostly numb to them by this point— _images of cannons he has never personally set foot in remain at bay, so long as he does not intentionally invite them in_ —but, the longer he’s here, the more frequent, and more persistent, becomes the sensation of pressure on his arm, like the feeling of fingers squeezing, pulling his skin.

 _Hey,_ he taps out against the chunk of core crystal in his chest.

Kratos doesn’t respond. The sensation stops, though.

Lloyd exhales, long and slow. It’s probably not a coincidence. He still has no idea what to do about it. Maybe he should figure out how much longer Miang wants him in here, how much longer he and Kratos are both going to have to endure the wires.

( _He’ll be fine, but clearly the sensation is driving Kratos nuts._ )

“Hey,” Lloyd calls, not up to Miang, but to one of her blades—her… her children. Miang didn’t stay more than ten minutes after they started this test, but, considering the ether levels in the adjacent room are probably pretty high, too, Lloyd doubts it’s safe for Miang to hang around for very long, blade eater or no.

The blade—Aurora—looks up from what she’s doing, silently affirming Lloyd has her attention by the way their eyes meet. Aurora looks like she’s somewhere in her early twenties, and she’s short and stocky besides. Her skin’s brown, and her curly black hair is cropped short. Her ether lines are brilliant, untainted purple, which means her core crystal is the same, though her clothes cover it, the fabric of her shirt going all the way up to her chin, even though her shoulders and arms are bare.

Looking at her makes Lloyd feel kind of cold, but maybe that’s just the fact it’s chilly in here, considering the high ether concentration, and _especially_ considering the fact he’s only in a tank top. ( _He misses his coat._ )

“Everything okay?” Aurora asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Lloyd says. “Just wondering how much longer you think it’s gonna be?” He makes himself laugh, tries to be polite enough—Miang’s blades are nice, even if his opinions on Miang are mixed—( _Then again, she’s nice too, and that’s exactly what drives him bonkers._ ) “I’m starting to get antsy.”

(Not a lie. Not the reason he’s worrying, though.)

( _The sensation of fingers pinching his skin picks up, again._ )

Aurora takes a second to answer, checking the monitors up there for—results?

“What’s the point of this test, anyway?” Lloyd asks. “I could have just _told_ you I was immune to ether poisoning.”

“It’s not whether or not you’re immune,” Aurora counters, still not looking at him. “It’s the how. The why.”

“’Cuz I’m a hybrid?” Lloyd guesses.

“We’re looking for something a little more specific than that.”

Lloyd scowls.

He doesn’t get a chance to ask for said specifics, because the door behind Aurora opens, admitting Miang. She takes a cursory look over the same monitors Aurora’s looking at. “How’s it going?” she asks. Then, she looks up at Lloyd, her smile soft. ( _Too soft._ ) “You okay, Lloyd?”

“Fine,” Lloyd lies.

( _He_ is _fine, at least as far as the ether situation goes. Everything else? Well._ )

“His body processes ether the same way a blade’s does, from the looks of it,” Aurora reports to her mother. Lloyd fidgets as he hears it—it’s uncomfortable news, and, ( _the sensation on his arm somewhat sharper, somewhat frantic, now_ ). “Which means it’s unlikely he’s going to get ether poisoning any time soon, or, at all.”

Miang looks away from Lloyd and leans in over her daughter’s shoulder, examining the data more closely. “Any thoughts on reverse-engineering the process?”

“Have to figure out why his body does it, first,” Aurora answers.

Lloyd wants to ask why they’re so interested, but ultimately he’s much too distracted, at the moment. The sensation on his forearm becomes less like pinching and more like fingernails digging into his skin, and, okay, _ow._

 _Dad,_ he taps out. No response.

( _Ow ow ow._ )

 _Dad,_ sent again, a little bit more frantic, this time.

Still nothing. No response. The pressure—the _pain_ on his forearm doesn’t let up. Lloyd hisses through clenched teeth. The pain is sharp and desperate, doesn’t stop. He tries to get Kratos’ attention one more time but he’s pretty sure they’re past that point. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t freak out.

( _He’s kind of freaking out._ )

What to do?

( _Ow, ow._ )

There’s really only one course of action, huh.

The pain in his arm is centered right around where the wires connect to his skin. It’s easy enough to guess that _they’re_ the problem. Lloyd holds his breath, mentally preparing himself for something that’s probably also going to hurt, but—He closes fingers around the wires, yanks them out one by one.

Lloyd lets out the breath he was holding in a hiss. The wires fall uselessly to the floor. The pain stops—completely. So that’s good.

The red marks of irritated skin on his arm? Not so good!

( _He’s not bleeding, though, so he guesses it could be worse._ )

“Lloyd?” Miang’s voice. Sharp. Concerned.

Of course. Of course.

“Sorry,” Lloyd says, around the pounding of his heart. He still feels a little breathless, freaked out— _frustrated._ ( _What the hell was all that, Kratos!?_ ) He presses his palm over his skin so Miang can’t see the damage, even though she’s probably too far away to see it, anyway. “It’s—”

He’s not sure what to say, not entirely sure what went wrong, pretty sure he couldn’t share even if he knew.

Lloyd wonders, briefly, if it was cannon related, but—No, no, there’s no way Kratos would have a harder time suppressing cannon memories than him. So. It’s something else, isn’t it?

( _He isn’t sure he wants to know._ )

“Is everything okay?” Miang presses, clearly concerned.

Lloyd inhales, shaky, exhales, trembling. He clutches his arm so tight _he’s_ going to end up leaving marks.

( _He definitely doesn’t want to tell her it was on Kratos’ end, so_ —)

“Cannons,” Lloyd says.

“What?”

“The—When you resonate with an Aegis, their memories—” Lloyd stops, licks his lips. “Bleed, sometimes, in dreams. So. I’ve. Uh.”

The rest of his words slip through his fingers like water. Lloyd wonders if Miang still understood. He hazards a glance up at her, even though looking up from his fingers clutching his arm makes him feel kind of dizzy. He looks up just in time to see her recoil in surprise. She understands, then.

“The wires,” Lloyd continues, in explanation. “Just feels kinda the same.” He laughs, nervous, embarrassed, chest tight with the lie. “I _know_ it’s not, but—”

Miang looks… _horrified._

“You should have said something!” she scolds.

Lloyd shrugs, tries to look sheepish, for show. “I… I thought I’d be fine,” he answers, mumbles, to sell this as hard as he can. His heart pounds, loud, in his ears. “I really- _really_ did.”

Miang’s silent for a long moment.

And then:

“Aurora,” she says, turning to her daughter. “Get him out of there.”

Lloyd blinks. “Oh, you sure?” he calls. He’s still a little shaky, but he’s okay, really. “I can stay—unless you _need_ the wires…?”

Miang raises a hand, shakes her head. “No, I think we’re done here,” she says. “I think we’ve learned enough.”

She heads for the door again, looking distracted. Aurora gets to her feet to retrieve Lloyd.

He almost isn’t paying attention when he receives the signal from Kratos.

 _Sorry_.

 

\- - -

 

All of Lloyd’s thoughts are way too big for his head, but he tries to pin them down later, when he’s alone—he gets a lot of time alone, at least, which is both good and bad—( _he aches to feel someone, anyone, physically there with him, edging into touch-starved after days with no one but Miang and her children_ )—and. Anyway. He sits on his bed in the room Miang gave him, back to the wall and legs crossed under him, huddling under the blanket as well as he can because it’s _cold,_ though really he’s just used to wearing more layers than this.

( _He’s also used to sleeping most nights sandwiched between Colette and Zelos, so._ )

He rubs his hand over his forearm, nervous, unable to get it off his mind. The marks have faded, but the memories still ring within him, as well as the fear. He rolls over what he knows.

He knows…

That Kratos was experimented on once, even if he doesn’t know the details.

( _The longer he’s with Miang, the more holes he can fill in, based on what she’s done and some guesses._ )

But he knows things Kratos has said over the past year, and he knows—

—the fleeting but unforgettable flash of ugly pain and sickness on Kratos’ face, when the topic came up—

—the fact that even though blade eaters don’t share emotion bleed with their donors, for a second earlier Lloyd could have sworn he felt Kratos’ panic under his skin, felt it in the erratic way his ether had pulsed—

—the marks on his arm, red, ugly, left by a man desperate to never feel like that again—

Lloyd knows:

Miang has set a trap, and he is the bait.

He’s also pretty sure if Miang tries even half the things she’s done to him on Kratos, that’s going to go very, very, _very_ badly.

( _Not to mention he’s absolutely positive he doesn’t want her to get her hands on Colette or Zelos, either. She’s shown way too much interest them, and apparently she’s their mom? That makes him really, really nauseous, for some reason._ )

So.

Lloyd closes his eyes and grits his teeth. He makes a decision.

Shivering against the cold, a million things trembling in his veins, he reaches up to the chunk of Kratos’ core crystal that sits in his chest.

_Dad._

Lloyd sends the signal with shaking hands. Really, he’s not nearly as fluent in morse code as blades are—he’s pretty sure it’s impossible for humans to be that fluent, actually—but he listens to Colette and Zelos pass signals back and forth in it all the time ( _he misses them so fucking much_ ), and they’ve taught him the basics, so he can replicate it well enough. So long as he takes it slow.

He waits a minute, then sends his signal again, not sure if he has Kratos’ attention.

 _Dad_.

A pause.

A signal, received—and Lloyd’s pretty sure he’s never going to get used to how weird it feels _,_ feeling that tap tap tap returned on chunk of Kratos’ core crystal that sits in his chest. In a way, it’s almost more of a fluctuation in the ether connecting them ( _thin, puny strands, compared to resonance_ ) than it is a physical sensation. Lloyd tries to focus less on what it feels like and more on what he’s receiving—

… _oyd._

He missed the first letters, but that was probably his name. Lloyd grits his teeth in frustration at himself, leans back against the wall. It’s fine, it’s fine, he’ll pay more attention next time.

Fidgeting, all of his thoughts too big to figure out exactly what he wants to say, let alone translate them into morse code. He should have thought them through before he started this conversation. He taps out _Dad_ again, just so Kratos gets something, longing bursting so loud in his chest it brings tears to his eyes.

( _He misses them. He wants to go home. But._ )

He receives a signal before he can get his thoughts together enough to send one.

_Are you hurt?_

Well that makes it a little bit easier. And, yeah, alright, he should probably let everyone know he’s still okay before he gets to everything else he has to say. Lloyd takes a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. He’s grateful that Kratos remembered—or, maybe Colette or Zelos reminded him—to send the signal slowly.

 _No,_ Lloyd answers.

He hesitates, wondering if that’s enough, but no, no it isn’t. He wants, _needs_ , his dad to know he’s safe. Things haven’t exactly been fun, but Miang hasn’t been completely horrid to him, either. He wants to put some of his family’s unease to rest. It’s the least he owes them, right?

_Am OK. Not too bad._

It’s all he has the patience to get out, and he feels severely limited by how slow he has to send it, by the fact he can’t use more complex words. He wants to say that all things considered he’s pretty sure he could have it much worse, since Miang hasn’t tried to cut him open and dissect him or anything. Like, okay, getting tossed in a room completely devoid of ether _sucked,_ but that was really the worst of it and…

Most of the problems he has with Miang have nothing to do with how he’s been treated. He’s actually been treated quite nicely and maybe he should tell his family that! It’s weird but he’s fine, he really trusts that _he’s_ going to be fine—

But Lloyd doesn’t know how to say all that, especially as restricted as he is right now.

 _That’s good,_ Kratos sends back.

Lloyd chews his lip. Probably hard enough that Kratos feels it, but he feels seconds away from sobbing as all the frustration and ugliness rears itself in his chest. He can’t stop the tears from pouring down his cheeks but. If he breaks down sobbing he’s not going to get out the really urgent thing that he has to send.

Breathe, Lloyd. Just breathe.

His fingers tremble as he taps out the message, the message he doesn’t want to send, but he has to, he has to.

_Don’t come. Trap._

The signal he receives in return is immediate—almost too fast for him to follow.

_We can’t leave you there._

Lloyd groans, unsurprised but wanting to tear his hair out. Of course that wouldn’t deter them. But they _cannot come for him._

He’s not sure how to put his fears into words, not even a little bit. He’s not even sure what his fears are, but things Miang has said about his parents, about Zelos and Colette, they play on loop in his mind. She’s so interested in all of them. Lloyd doesn’t want to expose them to her interest, doesn’t want them locked up here like he is as she runs—worse tests? Would she run worse tests? He doesn’t know but he doesn’t want to risk it, doesn’t want Kratos to relive painful memories more than he already is, doesn’t want…

Doesn’t want to see what the fond wistful longing Miang holds for his mother turns into, should they meet. _Definitely_ doesn’t want to see that longing directed onto Colette or Zelos, either. The thought alone makes him sick.

Honestly it’s too much to put into words even aloud, let alone in morse fucking code.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Lloyd fumbles for something, anything, to explain all that, finally settles on:

_She wants you._

And then, desperate, he adds.

_Don’t come._

Kratos doesn’t answer for a long moment. When he does, it’s slow and careful.

 _Hang in there,_ Kratos sends.

And.

 _We love you,_ Kratos sends.

It feels incredibly final. Conversation over.

( _Had he honestly thought he could convince his father otherwise?_ )

The dam breaks in Lloyd’s mind. His chest heaves with his despair, tears cascading down his face. No no no no _no!_

 _Don’t come,_ he taps, furious. It’s probably marred by how hard he’s trembling. _Please._ He can barely remember the patterns, isn’t sure he’s getting them right, but he tries: _Dad, please._

Kratos doesn’t answer.


	7. Chapter 7

“Hey,” Anna says, approaching Kratos as everyone else sets up their meager camp for the night. She was _going_ to help, but Malos had taken one look at Kratos, sitting on the edge of camp like usual, and had immediately and silently told her to _do something about him,_ so.

Kratos looks up at her. His eyes are kind of foggy—and, she hates that she’s almost gotten used to that expression on him. The fogginess is… better, though, than the wide-eyed unseeing panic from earlier today. ( _It’s really no wonder Malos is worried about him. Anna’s worried too._ ) It’s been hours, but Anna will be hard pressed to ever forget the way Kratos’ fear and frustration had gripped her lungs, cut off her air-flow.

Ultimately it hadn’t been as bad as Kratos had feared it was going to be, but it absolutely had left all three of them incapacitated for a little while. Anna’s just glad it’s over.

Though it’s not… really over, is it?

The newly-established emotion bleed between herself and Kratos tells her much the same as his expression does. It conveys a sensation of fogginess, of being here but not Here, filters distant unease that cannot quite be squashed into her gut. He’s still real bad off, and that beats against Malos’ concern-mixed-frustration, and her own creeping sorrow.

( _It can’t…_ always _be like this for Kratos, can it? Now must just be special, given the circumstances._ )

“Hey,” Kratos says, just a second before Anna can think she might have to say something else to get his attention. He’s sitting on the ground, legs crossed lazily, hands clasped tightly together and resting on his ankles. She watches as his hands flex, slightly relaxing, before clenching again.

“Hey,” Anna says back. “Can I sit?”

Kratos hesitates. And—he normally is slow, about most things, but. The relaxing, tightening of his clenched hands. The inhale to speak that’s held, released as just an exhale. The quiet fear that bubbles up within him before it’s throttled.

“…of course,” Kratos says, finally. His tone’s casual enough, but Anna knows better.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “If now’s… bad.”

“You can sit,” Kratos tells her.

He wouldn’t say so if he didn’t mean it. So Anna sits down, being sure to move slow, and project her every movement, and ultimately leave inches between them. His knees sticking out the way they are right now make it kind of difficult to sit close, anyway.

She still… _wants_ to touch him, but knows it would be a drastically horrible idea, right now, so she doesn’t even bother asking. Sometimes he just can’t stand physical contact, and now’s probably one of those times. That’s how Kratos is. So Anna pushes down her desire for it and silently, selfishly hopes that he’ll initiate it, anyway.

( _It strikes her funny, sometimes, how a man as brave, with a history as bold as Kratos Aurion, can be so delicate._

 _But then, a history like that is bound to leave someone somewhat delicate, isn’t it?_ )

“Scale of one to ten?” Anna asks, familiar rote.

Kratos breathes slowly. There’s a bubbling uncertainty, unease, along their emotion bleed. It takes him a moment to pick his answer, but no longer than it often takes him to pick his words, so Anna doesn’t think about it much this time.

“…seven,” he answers, finally.

Closer to ten, closer he is to a panic-attack. Anna exhales slowly.

“Well, that would make sense,” she tells him, patient. She offers him a smile.

Kratos sends a look at her. Something fond—if quiet—passes along their ether link, and it’s still the sweetest thing Anna thinks she’s tasted in her entire life. The gentle, somewhat shy cradle of it.

“It’s… closer to a six, now that you’re here,” he says, after a moment.

Anna’s heart about bursts. She loves this man so fucking much?

Kratos turns away, eyes falling to the dirt, again. The fondness in their link is eclipsed by unease.

“Truthfully, I feel…” he begins, and then hesitates. He’s always so careful, always so afraid of picking the wrong words, and Anna loves that about him, too. Fondness fuels her patience as she waits, watches him unclench and clench his hands again. Frustration-shame beats strong in him, along with the fleeting sense of overwhelming smallness. He sighs, the air shuddering as it leaves his lungs. “Like an idiot,” he mumbles.

Anna tilts her head to the side, hums inquisitively. She has a guess as to the why ( _she hopes the stunt Kratos pulled earlier didn’t hurt Lloyd_ ), but she wants to hear him say it, because maybe she’s wrong.

“What for?” she prods, because he seems to be having trouble finding the words.

His head ducks down, shoulders tight. “ _I’m_ not the one in danger,” he continues, his voice so so quiet, the shame in their ether link thick enough Anna could choke on it.

She sighs. Wraps the smallness in him up with her reassurance.

“No,” she admits. “But that doesn’t change what it feels like. Pain share’s a fuck.”

He laughs, empty. But it’s a laugh.

“Come on,” Anna presses, playful. She wants to nudge him, knows not to, pushes the delight along the emotion bleed instead. “You remember what Malos was like, when I was pregnant?”

When Kratos laughs this time, it has a little more life in it. Anna breaks into a grin, triumphant, fond at the memories. Even after nearly twenty years, it’s hard to forget Malos’ constant griping, the emotion bleed and pain share making him twice as irritable as Anna had been at the time—and hindsight, of course, making the memories infinitely funnier.

“I suppose when you put it like that,” Kratos relents, smiling.

She wants to hold his hand so bad. Press her weight into his side.

“I’m just saying, if Malos is allowed to throw a fit because _I’m_ pregnant, then you’re definitely allowed to be shaken up while Lloyd’s… you know…” She trails off and wiggles her fingers a little to convey the point, not wanting to get into specifics, for Kratos’ sake, for her own. If she thinks for more than a second about the fact that _her son is being experimented on,_ she will drown them both in her fury, and that’s the last thing either of them need right now. She sends Kratos a soft smile. “You’re allowed to be shaken up even without Lloyd being in trouble, but the pain share makes it, you know, extra valid.”

The fondness and love that flows along their ether link as Kratos looks at her makes Anna grin, but the quiet sort of peace that settles in Kratos’ chest could make her leap for joy. The release from the tension that had been gripping him is somewhat intoxicating.

Anna wiggles a little where she sits, not sure what to do with the longing in her chest since she can’t touch Kratos right now. She feels kind of like a kid with a crush again, but—it’s not _her_ fault she’s physically affectionate, and it’s _definitely_ not her fault sometimes that’s incompatible with what her husband wants. She can _deal._

What she should be doing is paying attention to the fond exasperation that fills up inside Kratos, though.

“Anna,” he says.

She snaps her attention to him, squinting a little at his tone. It’s… soft, exasperated, but it doesn’t wind her nearly as much as the fact he’s suddenly Here, eyes focused completely on her, looking the most grounded he’s looked in _days_.

“What?” she says.

“You could just _ask_ ,” he answers, and, the fucker, he’s laughing at her. It’s a laugh that’s entirely in his eyes and the quirk of his lips, but that’s honestly the most infuriating laugh he has.

Anna stammers something, blushing, a little annoyed. Is she just that obvious? Or does the emotion bleed convey longing as well as everything else? She glares at Kratos, glares harder when he just raises his eyebrows.

“Look,” she protests, but he’s right—she didn’t even bother asking, she just assumed the answer was no. That’s not as bad as assuming the answer is yes, but… “I just… I figured…” But no words she has are going to make this any better. So: “Can I?” she asks, instead, and that’s all she has to say because he knows what the rest of the question is.

Instead of answering, Kratos simply readjusts his legs and scoots closer to her, closing the distance between them. She flops into his side even before he’s wrapped his arm around her waist. She pulls his free hand into her lap and turns it over, tracing the ether line in his palm with her thumb, because it keeps her hands busy, because he loves it when she does. The quiet delight and flood of fondness that fills the emotion bleed and flows into her chest is one of the most wonderful things Anna’s ever tasted. Literally how the hell had they gone more than twenty years without this?

She wishes they’d thought to try under less dire circumstances. She wishes…

“You sure you want to go?” Anna whispers, concerned.

Kratos hums back, a note of confusion in his voice and in their ether link. “What… do you mean?”

Anna fidgets, rubbing her thumb in a circle over his palm.

“Just… you know,” she says, somewhat shaky, not certain of the words but—unlike Kratos—not having the patience to figure them out before she’s speaking. “It’s okay, if you want to stay behind, while the rest of us get Lloyd? I know you’ve been having a rough time lately, and—”

“Likely, that will not interfere with the rescue part of this mission,” Kratos interjects.

There’s a bubble of cold— _offense,_ that pops in their ether link. Like how _dare_ she suggest otherwise of him. Anna laughs a little at the feel of it, because, alright, that probably wasn’t fair of her.

“True,” she admits. She runs her thumb over and over the ether line in his palm. Tries not to feel her concern too strongly. “But you heard what the Aegises saw, right? That woman, who has Lloyd—she’s really interested in _you,_ too. Colette acted like Martel was terrified of what could be done to you.”

“It won’t come to that,” Kratos says.

He sounds so sure.

Anna isn’t.

Her uncertainty is conveyed to him before she can voice it. He sighs, tightens his grip on her waist, fond and completely certain.

“Would _you_ let it come to that?” he asks of her.

“Oh.”

That’s such a good point Anna’s surprised she didn’t think of it. She tries to imagine herself letting Kratos getting taken for experimentation. Fails. She’d fight tooth and nail to keep him safe, and so would Malos, and so would Zelos, and so would Colette. The confidence bubbling in Kratos’ chest suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“Exactly,” Kratos says, and Anna can hear the smirk even if she isn’t looking to see it. And, oh, she can’t say she enjoys the smug satisfaction that slides along their resonance link. She kind of wants to punch him for it, but she wouldn’t _actually_ do that. The emotion softens, anyway, his voice gentle as he presses his nose to her hair and mumbles. “I trust you more than that.”

Anna exhales. Melts a little into him. She’s… infinitely grateful for how solid he is, how warm, how Here. She isn’t sure what to say, just wraps up his trust like a treasure and holds it close. It still kind of winds her that Kratos trusts _her,_ a _human,_ as much as he does. Especially considering all that humanity has put him through.

Kratos, for once, speaks to fill her silence.

“So, it will be fine, I think,” he says, his fingers tracing little patterns on her hip. “Martel’s supposed to have information tonight about Lloyd’s captors, how many there are. We’ll be able to go in with a plan, and then come out alright.”

“You’re right,” Anna says.

Kratos hums, short and content, and the way it fills her bones is somewhat intoxicating. Though—really, it’s nothing compared to the steadiness in _him_ , how satisfying it is to feel a breakthrough in the clouds over Kratos’ heart. Maybe that clearness won’t last, but for now, things are okay. That’s all Anna can ask for.

( _She’s worried, too, underneath it all. About Kratos. About Lloyd. Confused and frustrated about this woman who kidnapped her son, thoughts often spinning too fast about why this woman thinks she knows her, and how, but—_

_It’s okay, for now. And it will be okay, ultimately._

_She knows that._ )

“Anna,” Kratos whispers.

It’s somewhat cautious. She hums as she twists her head to better look up at him from this position, affirming she heard him.

“I…” he begins, but he trails off, forehead creasing as he searches for the words. Anna laughs, lightly, because she loves him like this. His nervousness puts butterflies in her stomach, though, which is a new kind of weird feeling. Not a bad one, exactly. But strange.

( _It’s accompanied not seconds later by her awareness of Malos going dim, Malos having taken this as his cue to fuck off and stay out of this._ )

“Yeah?” she asks, impatient.

Either her impatience bleeds into him or he just decides words aren’t going to be enough, because he answers by taking her face in his hands and pulling her in for a kiss.

It’s soft, and shy, like all of Kratos’ kisses are. But also, _holy fuck,_ kissing while in resonance? That’s good shit! Anna easily gets lost in the taste of Kratos’ shy delight, drowns it with her own burning love. She reaches up and digs her fingers in his hair, just underneath the knot of his ponytail. She tugs him back down when he tries to pull away, and the surprise and exasperation it nets in her chest is like a song.

Kratos does pull away a little more deliberately a few seconds later, though, embarrassment bubbling strong in him. Which, alright, that’s fair. They _are_ in public. Anna can’t say she’s over the moon about kissing him while her dad and their—( _not kids)—_ the Aegises are politely not-watching, either.

Anna waggles her eyebrows at him, though, and Kratos’ cheeks glow with his blush. There’s a smile, under all that embarrassment on his face. He’s so _infuriatingly_ cute.

She shifts so she can kiss him on the nose, then settles against his side again.

“Thank you,” she says, and it’s her turn to feel a little embarrassed, but sincerity is important, damn it! “For resonating with me.”

Kratos manages to blush harder, which just makes Anna grin a little wider.

( _It’s okay, Kratos, her cheeks are dark as hell, too._ )

“Y- yeah?” he stammers back at her.

She nods. “Yeah. I’m really, _really_ glad we tried it.”

He hesitates, like he always does, but…

“I’m glad it worked,” he whispers, and he holds her close.

The quiet content that Anna feels burning in his core is worth the world, and then some.


	8. Chapter 8

Lloyd is bored out of his mind. And, since he has free roam of the place, Lloyd decides he might as well wander.

Miang’s—house? lab? secluded mountaintop mansion?—is pretty spacious, actually, way more space than he thinks three people need. It’s three stories—the basement is where all the labs are, the ground floor has all the living areas (kitchen, dining room, bedrooms, and so on) and the top floor? Honestly, Lloyd doesn’t even know what’s up there. He’s still working on mapping out the basement a little better, having already gotten familiar with the ground floor since he’s been using it. Top floor can wait until tomorrow.

He’d work on finding an escape route, but he can _feel_ the dense ether shield that’s around this place. No one’s getting in or out of that. ( _That’s part of the reason he’s scouring the basement, actually. It seems the more likely place to keep the shield controls. If he wants to escape through his own power, he’ll have to figure out how to deactivate it before he can do anything else._

_He has no doubt, that when his parents arrive to rescue him, Miang will let them right in._

_That’s worse, honestly, than needing to worry about deactivating the shield for them._ )

So far, he’s had no luck at finding any shield controls, but he does end up wandering past Miang’s office again. Maybe in here…? She probably won’t like him poking around her computer, but—

“Oh,” he says.

He’s not alone.

It’s not Miang, thankfully. It’s her daughter.

“Hmm?” Aurora says, looking up from her computer. She sees him, sends him a pleasant smile. “Oh, hi Lloyd! What brings you down here?”

“Uh,” Lloyd says. He goes to hook his thumbs through his belts, remembers when his thumbs hit empty air that he’s wearing his pajama pants, still. He has to let his hands fall to his sides again. “Just… looking around.” Oh, that might have sounded suspicious. “Bored, y’know?” he tacks on, quickly.

Aurora laughs a little. “Well, if you’re bored, you can always come look at what I’m doing,” she offers.

He’s not sure he wants to. But. Going back immediately to wandering is probably going to also be suspicious, huh. He kind of likes Aurora, at least. She’s nice. ( _It’s impossible to get more than a few words out of Nova at a time, and Miang’s… complicated._ )

So.

“Alright, sure,” Lloyd says.

He moves to join Aurora at her desk—it’s decorated mostly with knick-knacks, and the wall behind it features a single charcoal drawing of palm trees on a beach signed by Nova, and a photograph of Aurora, Nova, and Miang. Lloyd realizes when he looks over Aurora’s shoulder that he forgot to pull over a chair, but—it’s fine, he’s fine. He probably isn’t gonna hang around long, anyway.

“What’s this?” Lloyd asks, peering at Aurora’s computer. The screen displays what looks like three DNA strands, three text files of code he can’t read, and a fourth text file where it looks like Aurora’s jotting down thoughts.

Like her mother, Aurora seems delighted for the chance to explain.

“Look, here,” Aurora says, gesturing at the screen. “This is your DNA, this is Mom’s, and this is—some, non-blade eater human, they aren’t important. I’m just trying to find differences.”

Lloyd squints at the screen. He really can’t make any sense of it at all. “What for?” he asks. “Just interested ‘cuz I’m a hybrid?”

“The way your body processes ether is… fascinating,” Aurora answers. Her eyes are fixed on the screen, as she pulls up another window—some kind of chart. Maybe from that test they ran earlier? She stares at it as she speaks. “If I could just figure out… _how_ it does that…”

“You mean, the way my body processes ether like a blade does?” Lloyd asks.

“Yes.”

Lloyd thinks back to what he remembers Miang telling him about blade DNA, the other night. So much happened that night he doesn’t remember everything, but he does remember: “Wasn’t there like… something specific in blade’s DNA that controls ether processing?”

“The Aegis strands?” Aurora says, and then jerks so violently Lloyd has to step away from her. “Holy _shit._ Why didn’t I think of that!”

Lloyd watches as she leans towards her screen with newfound interest and urgency. She maximizes one of the text files so it’s fullscreen, then enters a command to search the file for a string of letters she types in so rapidly she must have done it a million times before. It’s incomprehensible, to Lloyd, but the computer tells her there’s one match in her text file. She inhales, sharp, holds her breath as she deletes the string and enters a new one. Another match.

“Holy shit,” she whispers.

“What?” Lloyd says. He isn’t sure he followed.

“Look.” She opens one of the other text files and repeats the process—no matches for either string of letters.

Lloyd blinks a few times. Then: “Uh, sorry. I’m not really good with computers?” he says. “What’s…”

Aurora sends him a somewhat withering look, but it’s replaced quickly by her fervency. “You have the Aegis strands in your DNA,” she explains. “The strands that tell _blades_ how to process ether. The strands that _no other human_ has.”

“Oh—”

“ _Fuck!_ ” Aurora shouts, suddenly. She slams her palm against the edge of the desk. All of her excitement is gone. “Fuck, that doesn’t help me at all!”

“Wh- what?” Lloyd laughs nervously, heart pounding in his chest from her sudden movement and shouting. He feels a little bit like he just stepped on a mine. What is going _on_?

Aurora doesn’t answer, right away. She buries her face in her hands, fingers clutching at her curls. She’s trembling. “Those aren’t strands of DNA humans are _meant_ to have,” she whines, voice small. ( _Lloyd fidgets, not exactly liking the way it makes him sound like he’s some kind of—thing to gawk at!_ ) “Can… can you even _introduce_ them into a human’s system, if the human wasn’t born with them? Is it even possible to make an antidote from them? _Fuck._ ”

Lloyd… isn’t sure what to do. He stares at this blade, having a breakdown in front of him, and he feels bad, but this wasn’t his fault, was it? He doesn’t even understand what’s wrong.

Should he… comfort her? He doesn’t really feel comfortable doing so.

“I…” he begins. “What… What do you need an antidote for? What are you trying to cure?”

“Ether poisoning,” Aurora whispers.

“What?” Lloyd asks. He chuckles, his nervousness and his confusion catching up to him. “That’s—what’s the point of that? Ether poisoning usually kills you… like, immediately? Within hours?”

Aurora sighs. She lifts her head from her hands, but doesn’t look at Lloyd, just stares blankly at her computer screen, its light reflected back on her face.

“Do you know what happens to humans who climb Valak mountain unprotected?” Aurora asks.

Lloyd swallows. “Uh, they get ether poisoning and die?”

He feels. Really uncomfortable, now.

( _The fact that he’s climbed Valak to its peak and then come right back down with no protection before isn’t helping at all. He was fine, because he’s a hybrid, but the fact that he’s fine doesn’t mean it’s easy to reconcile that that’s a thing he can do, doesn’t mean the fact he processes ether like a blade does is ever going to be easy to accept without feeling a little queasy._ )

Aurora hums. “It’s different, though, on Valak,” she says. “Because the ether gets stronger the closer you get to its peak—the exposure to it is gradual, but more importantly, constant. Even climbers who only visit the lower slopes of it will feel its effects, if they spend too long on its trails.” She puts her hands in her lap, tugging at the fabric of her shorts. “Their bodies and their minds will start breaking down, slowly, but persistently. Not all at once—compared to, say…”

“Jumping in an ether river?” Lloyd guesses, picking the opposite extreme.

“Exactly.”

Lloyd swallows again. Tries not to think about how grim this topic really is.

“That’s… that’s why there are some places with high ether concentrations that are okay to go through so long as you don’t stay long, huh,” Lloyd muses, quiet. That’s a little easier to think about.

Aurora nods. “Yeah. But… if you stayed in one of those places for, say, a year… or two…”

Lloyd clenches his hands into fists. Without his gloves, his nails dig into his palms, sharp.

“You’d die, but slowly,” he whispers, chest tight.

“Once the ether starts building up in your system, yes,” Aurora says. “Body and mind breaking down until there’s nothing left.”

Lloyd tries to figure out why this is important.

He doesn’t like the answer he comes to.

He remembers—Miang’s unsteady hands, the persistent gaps in her memory. A very cluttered, tightly controlled deskspace, littered with reminders to keep herself on track. He feels his heart drop into his stomach.

“ _Miang_ …?” Lloyd breathes the question, horrified.

Aurora’s silence speaks volumes.

Lloyd swallows, again. Tries to speak. Can’t get his mouth working. He feels kind of like he’s going to be sick, not sure what to do when confronting this reality—Aurora’s grief, and his own… pity. Maybe he doesn’t like Miang that much, but he certainly doesn’t wish death upon her.

“H- How?” Lloyd asks.

Aurora takes a second, then reaches up to touch her core crystal. “Here,” she says, “Mom has Ramsus’ core crystal.” She pulls her finger away, then trails it a few inches downward, until she points at her heart. “Here,” she says, “Mom has a shard of Poppi’s.”

The realization hits Lloyd like a kick to his gut.

He takes a step backward, wheezing.

“ _Two_ core crystals!?”

He’s not sure if he’s horrified or disgusted or…

Aurora shrugs.

“But—” Lloyd scowls. “Blade eaters…” He’s not sure how to begin the question.

“Core crystals don’t produce more ether than humans are capable of handling alone,” Aurora explains, understanding even though he didn’t manage to ask. “It was the second one that pushed her ether levels into somewhere dangerous—and it took years before she… Before…”

Aurora’s hands close into fists, knuckles white.

Lloyd considers the problem, pulling his eyes away from Aurora to the computer screen he can’t read. His eyes fix on it, though his gaze is unfocused.

“Can’t you… just remove the second crystal?” he asks.

Aurora shakes her head. “It’s too late,” she whispers, grim. “Her ether has already been permanently damaged—her body completely dependent on both crystals to function, now. Removing either one of them would… probably kill her.”

Lloyd’s eyes snap to Aurora again. She’s still sitting rigid, trembling a little, staring at—the picture on the wall, of her mother.

He feels sorry for her.

“Guess… I can’t blame you for not wanting to try,” he says. He looks to the research on Aurora’s computer again, not that he understands it much. “Why… didn’t she say anything, though?” he asks. “If I’d known she was so interested in me being a hybrid because of this…”

Aurora sends him a smile, bitter. “I think she doesn’t want to worry you,” she says. Then she shakes her head, scoffing lightly. “ _And_ she got distracted. By Anna. Predictable, really, but now I’m doing all her work.”

“Uh, sorry?”

Aurora shrugs. “I don’t mind,” she says. She’s still quiet, and her smile is still kind of empty, but she speaks with certainty more than she does with grimness. “I don’t want her to die.”

Lloyd doesn’t know what to say to that. He wants to help, isn’t sure how. Is pretty sure he wants to go home more than he wants to help. He aches for his family. ( _He’s almost gotten used to the emptiness in his bones, the lack of resonance, and that terrifies him, makes him feel emptier._ )

He turns and leans his weight against Aurora’s desk, palms pressed to its edge behind him. He looks at his feet rather than her.

“Do… I really have to be here for you to do this research?” he asks.

Aurora pushes her chair a little ways back from the desk, leaning back in it as she studies him. “Probably not, at this point,” she admits. “But…”

“Your mom’s not gonna let me go, huh?”

“No.”

Lloyd sighs. He grips the edge of the desk, digs his fingers into its underside until his fingertips start to hurt.

“…would _you_?” he asks.

Aurora doesn’t answer right away. Lloyd sends a hesitant glance towards her—he’s asking a lot of her, and he knows that, but… he has to ask, doesn’t he? He has to try.

She doesn’t answer, though. She just narrows her eyes, like she’s mulling it over.

Finally the silence stretches on long enough that Lloyd has to break it. Bitterness and disappointment bubbling up in his chest, he scowls and folds his arms in front of him, leaning his hip against the desk instead.

“Wow, comforting,” Lloyd snaps. Something ugly, something angry, burns under his skin.

Aurora sighs.

“Things are complicated, Lloyd.”

“What’s complicated about letting a prisoner go!”

He wants to go home so bad he feels like he’s gonna be sick.

Aurora just stares him down, patient, eyes burning—with sadness, but with resolve, as well. She’s made up her mind. “If we can’t cure Mom, I really- _she_ really wants to see Anna, again. And Zelos, and Colette. I don’t want to deny her that,” Aurora says. “If this is the last thing she’ll get, before she dies—I think it might bring her peace.”

It makes sense, but it’s so stupid.

Lloyd growls, short. He lets the mean thing in his chest fill his mouth instead of swallowing it back down like he normally does. “Yeah, sure,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes. “But if my parents have to come all the way here to rescue me, I don’t think they’re gonna be very nice about it.”

Aurora doesn’t say anything, so he keeps going, lets the rude thing keep bubbling, anger and despair fueling his words—“They could hurt you, or they could hurt your mom, or—what, didn’t think of that?” Lloyd demands, bothered to the depths of his soul by Aurora’s continued, persistent silence.

She turns to him, slowly, fixes deep green eyes upon his face. “Oh, I have,” she assures him. “But Mom hasn’t.”

That takes him by surprise.

“R- Really?” Lloyd stammers, the mean thing dying in his throat.

Aurora nods, shrugs.

“She trusts Anna too much,” she says, like it’s that simple. Her smile is soft, if barely there. “The thought of Anna hurting her—likely hasn’t occurred to her. Likely never will.”

Lloyd doesn’t like that thought, doesn’t like the past that apparently lies between his mother and Miang, doesn’t like all the implications of it. He grits his teeth and drums at his skin, turning his head away.

“Yeah, well,” he spits. “She’s gonna be in for a rude awakening.”

“Yeah,” Aurora says, like maybe she’s thought about that, too.

Lloyd turns to her again, desperate for—something, anything, a way out of this mess. “Don’t you wanna save her that heartbreak?” he pleads.

Aurora sighs. “She needs to know the truth,” she counters. “She needs to see it for herself. If she doesn’t—she’ll never let it go. Trust me.”

 

\- - -

 

Martel steps into another blade’s dreams. She knows their name to be Nova, because someone calls them that in their dream before Martel’s presence brings lucidity to it, and all other actors fade to nothingness, leaving the Aegis and the artificial blade alone in the room. They stand in the entrance hall for a large house, not far from a spiral staircase of marble that leads both upwards and downwards. The colors—all warm tones—are painted with the gentleness of home. Martel almost feels like she’s intruding.

“Oh,” Nova says, turning to their visitor. “So I have been graced with the presence of an Aegis.”

Their tone is flat, but the curve of their lips is playful and sharp, the glint of their eyes conveying all the sarcasm their voice does not.

Martel hesitates, a second. For all the things she planned to say to this blade, she had not bothered to consider how to begin the conversation, too caught up in her protectiveness and anger. The way Nova holds themselves certainly isn’t helping Martel formulate any thoughts. They’re taller than her, about as tall as Kratos, and between the complicated updo their hair is in and the loose, lowcut dress they wear, they easily look like royalty in their own home.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Nova asks.

Their tone is pleasant enough. Martel is almost certain she’s being mocked.

The anger that spikes through her lets her get her bearings, gather her thoughts. ( _It also elicits a short signal, worried, from Mithos. You okay?_ Yeah I’m fine. Just taking care of something. _Okay, let me know if you need help._ )

“You have Lloyd,” Martel says.

Nova raises their eyebrows.

“You know him?”

“He’s my nephew.”

“Mm,” Nova hums, in affirmation. They nod slowly, understanding, the tilt of their head playful. “Then why are you worried? After all, you must know your brother is on his way to rescue him.”

Martel’s hands clench into fists.

( _She’s worried about that, more than Lloyd._ )

“If… if you hurt him,” she whispers, her fury stirring a breeze that they should not feel through all these closed windows, thoughts of Kratos twisting the image around them, just a little. A glimpse of bookshelves beyond the staircase. Walls opening into a library that hadn’t been there before, not in this house, but in a memory of Martel’s. “If you _hurt_ Kratos—”

“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” Nova interrupts, calm. Their hands are clasped at their waist, patient.

Martel scowls.

“You set a _trap_ ,” she accuses. “You _kidnapped_ Lloyd.”

Nova doesn’t even flinch under the accusations. Their eyes dart to their right—opposite the library, Martel has accidentally painted another image. A small, comfortable room warmed by a forge, somewhere Colette remembers better than she does, something stored along with her thoughts of Lloyd. The raise of Nova’s eyebrows make Martel feel like she’s being judged, and she hates it. She tries to push the dreamspace back into the shape it had been when she first set foot here, but she does not remember Nova’s home, so all the dreamspace does is take the pieces of Martel’s and blot them out with emptiness.

“What excuse do you have for that?” Martel demands, trying to keep the thundering pulse of her ether in check.

“We simply have some questions we need answered,” Nova responds.

Martel could not possibly glare harder.

“And _how_ does that involve kidnapping a child?”

“Lloyd is a piece of the puzzle,” is what Nova says, unbothered. “So are his parents.”

The air is thick with the smell of old books and fresh coffee. The pink and orange rays of sunrise filter—relentlessly and unabashedly—through the windows.

“What about Colette?” Martel asks. “And Zelos?”

“My siblings?” Nova interrupts, before Martel can finish her question. The two words take all of the air out of Martel’s lungs.

( _She knows, better than anyone, that family can be what you choose more than it is anything else._

_She also knows, better than anyone, what it’s like to have a little brother that you love just because he is your brother, even if you did not choose him, but were given him._

_The bond between siblings, no matter its source? It’s a hard thing for Martel to deny offhand._ )

“My mother wants to see them, just once, before she dies,” Nova explains. Their voice is serene, but their eyes burn with desperation. “Is this not the least I can give her?”

The mention of a mother immediately snaps Martel out of her shock, the warmth of sunrise replaced by the coldness of Derris-Kharlan’s endless night. She thinks of her father though she’d rather not, thinks of all the complications he’s brought to her life and—

Pushes that aside to remember that _the blade standing before her has kidnapped a child,_ and for what? The sake of their own family?

“That’s the shittiest excuse I’ve _ever_ heard!” Martel snaps.

( _As if you would not do the same,_ something dark and cruel whispers in Martel’s soul. She pushes that down, too.)

Nova’s eyes go cold. All of the warmth and softness they were painting the dreamspace with is replaced now with sharp edges and tight fear. They take one step towards Martel, staring down at her, the clasp of their hands too-tight.

“Do you know what it’s like?” they whisper. “To have your memories begin to slip away from you? To have no control over the thoughts you keep and the thoughts you lose? Do you know how _horrible_ that is?” Their up-‘til-now steady voice trembles. “Do you know how horrible that is to _watch_ , to watch and be able to do nothing to stop? Do you understand, Martel? I cannot _stop_ my mother from dying. I cannot do _anything_ but sit and watch her slip away from me.”

They take another step forward. Martel takes one back.

“If all I can do is bring her peace of mind, before she dies, then that is what I will do,” Nova says.

Martel thinks about arguing—there are other ways, for their mother to meet her family. More peaceful ways. Ways that don’t involve kidnapping Lloyd, ways that don’t involve threatening Kratos. But.

She can see there won’t be any convincing Nova to take another path.

So she asks another question, one that’s more useful, one that will help her achieve a favorable outcome of unfavorable circumstances.

“How many of you are there?” Martel asks. “How many will my family have to cut down to save Lloyd?”

Nova hesitates, only for a second.

“Three,” they answer. “There are only three of us. But it should not come to violence.” Martel opens her mouth, but Nova cuts her off with a grim promise. “And if it does come to violence, then there will be five of us. Do not go into this recklessly.”

Martel wants to ask what that means, but Nova snaps the connection, closes their port.

Martel is spat back out into the network.


	9. Chapter 9

Lloyd drums his fingers against the top of the fridge door as he holds it open, glaring at Miang's food as he tries to decide what he wants to eat. He feels kind of bad raiding her fridge for food like this, but honestly, it's the least she deserves for kidnapping him, right? Except she probably doesn't fucking care that he's stealing her food, probably doesn't even consider it stealing, and that's worse, actually, and—

“Oh, Lloyd!”

Lloyd startles as he's pulled out of his thoughts, spinning around and reaching in his mind for Colette—but she’s not there and before his hands can go to the swords he's not even wearing he realizes…

It's not a threat.

It's just Miang.

Just. fucking. Miang.

The fridge door closes behind him with a soft _thwunk_ of it sealing again.

“Sorry, did you need something?” Miang asks.

Her tone is gentle, and her smile kind, but it makes Lloyd’s blood boil regardless. He's not sure if she's being condescending or what, not sure if he'd prefer that. He hates her. He hates how nice she is. He hates this he hates this he hates that anger boils in his gut so thick he could choke on it when he looks at her, hates that when he sees red he had no one to blame but himself, hates that he can't ground his anger against Colette's horror or Zelos’ calm, or at _le_ _ast_ feel justified because they're angry too.

“If you're hungry,” Miang says, “I can always—”

“I just wanted a snack,” Lloyd interjects.

“I can make you something,” Miang finishes, like he didn't even speak, and she's crossing the kitchen from the doorway to the fridge and there's nothing Lloyd can really do but step to the side and let her at it.

“I’m fine,” he says.

She opens the fridge and reaches in. “Does a sandwich sound alright? It’ll be quickest.”

“I really don’t need—”

“Nonsense, it’s no trouble!”

Lloyd has half a mind to fucking punch her in that kind little smile she shoots at him. ( _He hates how wound up he is, but he misses his family and he’s worried sick about them and what’s in store for them, he’s tired of being Here._ ) ( _He hates hates hates that even once his family’s here for him he’ll have to cross an entire river of bullshit before he can actually calm down and decompress, given all that Miang wants and all the damage control he’s going to have to do, because sure he hates Miang, but he doesn’t want either of his parents to cut her open, she doesn’t deserve that_.)

Miang’s already pushing past him, bread and other sandwich things in her hands as she crosses the room to the counter on the opposite wall, and. Ugh. If it’s so hard to tell her he doesn’t want a fucking sandwich, it’s really no wonder Aurora told him it wasn’t worth trying to convince her to go about her plan any other way.

Lloyd sighs and accepts his fate, pulling out a chair from the small table in the center of the kitchen and plopping himself down. He taps his feet, all of his anger making him restless. The fidget cube in his pocket is a weight on his thigh, tempting, but he ignores it out of spite. Instead he distracts himself with—

The too-sharp taste of Miang’s ether, now that he knows to look for it. He attributed the Amount of it to Miang being a blade eater, but he can taste now the conflicting flows of two core crystals in close proximity, the way they intertwine which feels… Sick.

Her ether feels sick.

Guilt and something else grip at his heart, as he mulls the taste of the sickness over—Aurora was right, though, the two signatures are so knotted together it would be impossible to separate them safely. He wishes he had a solution. Maybe an Aegis could do it? He doubts, a little bit, that Colette or Zelos would even want to help his kidnapper, but…

( _…maybe they’d want to help their mom? Actually, that’s a worse way to think about it, he doesn’t want to think about that, what Miang is to his two best friends, because something about that relationship makes his blood curdle—_ )

“Actually, Lloyd, while I have you here… can I ask you some questions?” Miang says.

—and _there_ it is!

Lloyd’s half-hearted frustration comes back full force. Of _course_ that’s all she wants out of him! Grimacing so hard it hurts, biting his tongue so he doesn’t whine, Lloyd forces himself to take a deep breath. One two three three two one. Fuck.

It’s not like she’s gonna let him say no, so:

“Yeah,” he answers.

“I wanted to ask about Zelos and Colette,” Miang says. She keeps her back to him, her tone casual, as if she was asking about something as simple as the weather.

Lloyd’s shoulders tighten. His hands close into fists, knuckles push push pushing into the wood of the table.

“What about ‘em.”

Miang is quiet for a long moment, and she’s very still, too. She turns her body to look at him, her expression—wistful, her shrug apologetic. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Everything? It’s not like I got to know them myself.”

She sounds so sad. So hopeful. It makes Lloyd feel sick.

Lloyd raps his knuckles against the table. Chews at his tongue as he chews on his thoughts.

What does he tell her?

Does he tell her about Colette’s love of sunrises, and coffee that’s blacker than the void? Zelos’ love for shitty romance novels, and the fact that despite everything Lloyd was Zelos’ first kiss? That he was Colette's? Does he tell her about their captivity? Their freedom? Colette’s soft sadness, or Zelos’ sharp masks? The quiet nights shared between them, cuddled up and clinging when the ghosts of their pain feel just a little closer than normal?

Does she deserve to know any of these things?

She doesn’t.

“Yeah, well. Maybe you shouldn’t have left them. Then you’d know,” Lloyd says, before he thinks about it.

Miang spins the rest of the way to face him, her head snapping up. She looks. Surprised. Kind of hurt.

“Lloyd…” she says, face pinched. “I didn’t have a _choice_.”

“Sure you did,” Lloyd counters.

Everyone has a choice. To stay or to go. To search for or to leave abandoned. To try or to simply let slip away.

Miang trembles. She grips the edge of the sink to her right to steady herself. “They were _taken_ from me before I even had the chance to wake them.”

Lloyd scoffs. “And that stopped you from, what? Going and freeing them wasn’t that hard, obviously,” he snaps, and it’s way too sharp and he shouldn’t be speaking like that, shouldn’t be _bragging_ about freeing the Aegises ( _he only freed Zelos, and that was with a team of eight, two of whom were intimately knowledgeable with how to pull the operation off_ ). But. He’s so fucking mad, right now, the anger echoing in a vacuum, ricocheting, repeating.

“They knew my face,” Miang argues, almost breathless. “They had special orders to keep me out—”

“Can’t have been like they were trying to keep you out harder than they would have kept some random person like me out,” Lloyd says, not giving her the room to speak. He kicks his toes against the ground, burning with energy and anger. Why does it matter? He isn’t sure, but it’s gnawing at him, it’s gnawing, it’s gnawing.

“Lloyd, I _tried._ ”

“Not hard enough.”

“Please,” Miang says. “It’s not like—”

“You had _a hundred years,_ ” Lloyd spits at her. A hundred years. Colette and Zelos both only talk about being awake for around fifty of that, but. “They were both prisoners, birds kept in gilded cages, for a _century_. Forget the cannons! Their lives were hell enough without those! And you just left them to that!”

“Lloyd.”

“How _dare_ you call yourself their mother!”

He jumps to his feet, burning with all this energy and anger in his gut. He hates looking at Miang, hates how she looks like his words _hurt_ her, hates that vulnerable pain in her eyes—Yeah, well, she _should_ be hurting! She needs to answer for her mistakes!

“I only wanted the best for them,” Miang argues, eyes narrowing slowly.

He’s fucking heard that one before.

Lloyd pounds his fist against the table. He’s so. _Angry._ He’s so tired of being angry.

( _And he’s not… dumb. Not completely. He knows that this anger—that it’s not all… It’s not all about Miang. But._

 _Miang he doesn’t feel bad yelling at._ )

“Then why fucking create them?” Lloyd demands.

Miang doesn’t say anything. She looks. Kind of horrified. Lloyd tries to take the ugliness in his veins and push it. Somewhere. Anywhere. Back under the surface, where he can’t feel it. He can’t stop being angry though and he wants— _answers._

If Miang’s their mom and Miang loves them why’d she only show up _now?_

“Come on,” Lloyd spits, and he should stop, he should stop, but he can’t stop. “You must’ve known what it was gonna be like for them! Unless you didn’t know what it was like for the original Aegises—unless you _really thought_ that their lives would be just fine, and—”

“I intended to save them” Miang interrupts.

Lloyd shuts his mouth.

It’s just long enough for Miang to say her piece.

“The government was willing to give me a lot of money to carry out experiments, so I didn’t turn them down,” she explains, and there’s frustration in her eyes, maybe some regret. “But I didn’t intend to leave my children to their fates, either.”

Miang’s frustration sharpens into something pained.

“But they wouldn’t accept an Aegis who couldn’t resonate,” she continues in whisper. “And they wouldn’t allow me to resonate with them. And—the failsafes, I installed in them… I could never get close enough to activate them.”

It makes sense. It should be enough.

But.

“Bullshit,” Lloyd says, because nothing _Miang_ says will ever be enough to satisfy the anger and pain in his veins. And the anger, unsatisfied, keeps raging, keeps digging, until it gets what it wants.

( _It will never get what it wants, not from Miang._ )

There’s that hurt expression on Miang’s face, again.

“I tried, Lloyd,” she pleads. “I really did.”

Lloyd sneers. Anger anger anger plays on loop in his chest. It’s funny how just three days ago he would have told you the hardest thing about being in resonance with someone is the way the emotions feed off each other and build up to terrifying heights, but now he knows being alone with his emotions only makes them so much worse.

“And I’m supposed to _believe_ that?” he asks.

Miang’s face hardens, eyes narrowing sharply. She looks like she’s had enough of Lloyd’s accusations. “Is it _really_ that hard to believe a mother only wanted what was best for her children, even if she failed in delivering that for them?” she demands.

“A mother who was never there for her children might as well not be a mother at all,” Lloyd spits back.

( _And—Maybe that’s mean of him. Maybe Miang DOES have a more valid excuse for not being there, certainly a more valid reason than—_

 _Don’t think about it don’t think about her you cannot spend the rest of your life mad at her so it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine._ )

“That’s why I’m trying now…” Miang begins.

And Lloyd _should_ counter that she went about it in the worst way possible, he should tell her that Zelos and Colette will never forgive her for kidnapping him, but what bubbles up and out from between his lips is something a lot more hurt.

“You think they _want_ that!?” he says, everything he feels messily colliding into words. “You think that—you think you have the _right_ to just waltz into their lives now and act like everything’s fine, like you were never gone, like you still have the _right_ to be their mother?”

Miang’s lip trembles, but her resolve does not.

“I have to try,” she tells him.

“You should have tried sooner,” Lloyd spits. “You should have never left—”

“ _They were taken from me!_ ”

Lloyd takes a step back.

Her anger and the way she’s trembling—and she is, trembling, she’s trembling, frail, where she stands. It makes him reconsider. That indignation on her face… Like how _dare_ he suggest she chose to leave her children? Wasn’t he listening? They were taken from her _before she had the chance to make the choice to leave them._

Lloyd’s anger abates in his surprise and his horror just enough for him to really… _really_ analyze the fact that it’s Miang, who stands before him right now. It’s Miang, and it’s not—

Well.

It’s not really Miang he’s mad at.

“Sorry,” Lloyd mumbles. He takes a step back, another step, another two. “Sorry,” he says again, and then he slips out of the kitchen and he runs, ashamed, angry. He’s really not an idiot. He just doesn’t like the truth that boils under his skin.

( _He cannot be mad at her forever._

_He wants her here, he really does._

_But._

_But._

_But._ )

 

\- - -

 

_Mom?_

He stands alone in a crowd. Her hand has been snatched from him. He doesn’t know where she is.

_Mom! Where’d you go?_

A million faces around him. None of them are hers.

_Mom, please—_

A million faces around him. All of them are hers.

All of them are strangers.

_Please…_

\- - -

 

Lloyd wakes up in a cold sweat.

His lungs are tight. He gasps for air, trying to breathe.

Trembling, he rolls onto his side and curls in on himself. Even under a mound of blankets, he’s cold, he’s so—

_What if they never come for you._

He’s so cold, and he’s alone, and he needs—

_What if she doesn’t care enough to find you again._

He needs to _not_ be alone, or at least to not feel like he is, overwhelmingly as he does right now. He presses his palm flat against Kratos’ core crystal embedded in his chest, lets its steady pulse of either calm his nerves. He syncs up his breaths with the pulse of it; in two three four, out two three four. It’s warm, against his skin.

Kratos is coming.

Kratos, and Colette, and Zelos.

He can trust that, if nothing else.

Lloyd breathes. He feels—guilty, just a little. But Kratos has never minded before. And he might as well try. And the loneliness, that clings to him? He can’t stand it.

So he pulls his hand away just enough that he can tap his finger against the core crystal instead.

_Dad._

He sends it, once, and waits. No response.

_What if he—_

_He’s just sleeping._

And maybe, maybe Kratos is sleeping too deeply for this to get his attention, and that’s… that’s alright, really. Lloyd sends the signal again, though. He really, really does feel guilty about it, but he needs someone, right now. Someone who isn’t Miang, or one of her children. He wants _his_ family. _His_ dad.

( _He wants to know he isn’t alone, wants to throttle the thing in his brain that whispers he is, needs something just a little bit more concrete to tell it its wrong._ )

 _Dad,_ he sends again.

_Dad._

_Dad._

_Dad._

Again, and again, on repeat he taps it. It’s soothing, almost, repeating it like this. Hold tap tap. Tap hold. Hold tap tap. Again, again, again. It’s almost mind numbing enough he could fall asleep to the rhythm. But then—

A signal, received.

_Lloyd._

It interrupts his tapping. He waits, not sure what he wanted other than Kratos’ attention, and Kratos is sending another message, anyway.

 _Are you okay?_ Kratos asks.

 _Yes,_ Lloyd answers, immediate. He’s not really sure if he’s okay, but he’s at least not in any kind of immediate danger, which he figures is what Kratos is worried about.

He follows up his reassurance with something shaky, dropping words, mind too tired and chest too tight to put forth the patience for his very human brain to calculate more letters than he needs to to get his point across.

_Wanted talk._

_Just._

_To hear u._

To feel like he’s not alone, just for a few minutes. The reminder that someone’s coming for him. That someone cares about him. Thinking like that makes him cold, so cold, and—

_“I only wanted to keep you safe.”_

—and he’s being stupid, of course someone’s coming for him, of course his family wouldn’t abandon him. He has more faith in them than that.

But when Kratos replies with:

_I’m here._

Relief burns so strongly in Lloyd it brings tears to his eyes. He gathers up the reassurance and holds it tight. Kratos’ core crystal burns so warmly in his chest. He uses that warmth to push down the cold fears in the depths of his soul.

 _Love u,_ Lloyd taps out, sniffling.

 _Love you,_ Kratos sends back, immediate.

And.

 _Be there soon,_ Kratos says. _Tomorrow probably._

Lloyd’s breath hitches in his chest, a hiccup of a sob choked by his surprise. Tomorrow? That’s so soon. He’s excited, relieved, scared. Scared. He’s pulled off rescue missions, lived on the run for months, met god, ended wars, but none of that scares him as much as sitting here in wait to be rescued, knowing that he is only bait in a trap, knowing that there are so many things that can go wrong once Miang and his family meet.

 _Don’t,_ Lloyd begins, but isn’t sure what to say.

Don’t come? He wants them to come. Don’t be reckless, maybe. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t hurt anyone.

 _I won’t leave you,_ Kratos answers.

Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut against the tears those four little words bring, shuddering with all the emotion in his chest. It’s so warm, under the blankets, but he never wants to leave.

 _Worried,_ he tells Kratos, not sure how else to sum up his anxieties. Kratos can fill in the gaps.

 _We’ll be okay,_ Kratos assures him. There’s really no way to convey expression or tone when communicating like this, but it feels… gentle, somehow. _It’ll be okay._

Lloyd breathes, easy. He hugs his chest, clutching Kratos’ warmth close.

 _Miss u,_ he sends, and _Love u. Tell Zelos too. And Colette. And…_

He’s not sure who else is with Kratos, who else he can count on having come. Everyone probably would have agreed to in a heartbeat, but did they have enough time to gather everyone? Genis and Raine and Seles and Sheena are off traveling, and Yuan and Botta were looking into settling down somewhere. None of them are close…

It doesn’t matter, Lloyd supposes. He’ll find out tomorrow.

 _Everyone,_ he tells Kratos. _Tell everyone._

 _I will,_ Kratos replies.

_Thank u._

Silence stretches, after that. It’s not exactly oppressive, but Lloyd can’t say he wants the conversation to end.

He doesn’t know what else there is to say, though.

Oh.

Actually there’s at least one thing, huh? Information he should share.

 _Dad,_ he says, first, just to make sure Kratos is still listening.

 _Yes,_ Kratos says.

_R Colette Zelos with u?_

Hesitation, on Kratos’ end. And then: _Yes. Why?_

_Don’t bring them._

( _she doesn’t deserve to see them she doesn’t deserve to_ )

 _Why not_? Kratos asks.

Lloyd tries to pin down how to put his fears into words. They aren’t really concrete, just a certainty—unfounded or otherwise—that if Miang is in the same room as Zelos and Colette, something’s going to go wrong.

( _Maybe they’ll leave him—no no no no_ )

 _Miang made them,_ Lloyd settles on, finally. _I think that’s bad._

 _Bad how?_ Kratos presses.

 _Dunno,_ Lloyd admits. _Just bad._

Kratos hesitates, for a long while. The lack of response makes Lloyd shiver, a chill against the warmth he feels, but—Kratos is likely just trying to pick his words. Kratos always does that. Always takes his time. Lloyd really can’t blame him, especially when they are communicating like this. Morse code makes it so much slower, and harder, and…

( _And tomorrow, he can hear Kratos’ voice. Won’t that be a blessing._ )

 _Noted,_ Kratos says. _Though I doubt I can convince them to stay behind._

Lloyd receives that message, and he chuckles at it. Yeah. That’s fair. Honestly, he doesn’t expect any different from them, either. It worries him, just a little, but. He’d prefer that, anyway. He really would.

 _Just tell them,_ he says. _They need to know._

 _Alright,_ Kratos says.

Lloyd’s pretty content to just let the conversation end there, but:

 _Love you, Lloyd,_ Kratos says.

Lloyd grins.

_Love u too._

Palm pressed flat against Kratos’ core crystal, Lloyd lets the warmth and the pulse of Kratos’ ether lull him back to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

****

                        _Lloyd. Almost there_

_I know_

_Don’t worry_

_Trying_

Lloyd lays on his back on the floor of the room he was moved to. A holding pattern, something just short of a cell. Somewhere to keep him while the promise of his safety is used as a bargaining chip.

The lock is on the outside of the door, and even if he could reach it, he has nothing to pick the lock with. He’s not stupid enough to try breaking the door down, either. He’ll probably hurt himself long before he succeeds. Which means he’s stuck, until someone comes to get him.

                        _Lloyd_

_Yea?_

_How many are there?_

_Three_

_Martel said five_

_Only seen three_

_Please don’t hurt them_

_No promises_

_Dad_

_They kidnapped you_

_I know but_

_We’ll see_

_No promises_

Kratos climbs the mountain, ahead of the group. There’s chatter behind him—Anna and Malos both incapable of keeping their mouths shut except in the most desperate of times, and even then—but Kratos doesn’t listen. His son is ahead. That’s all that matters.

                        _Know anything about the trap?_

_No_

_She might not even_

_I don’t know_

_That’s fine_

Lloyd wishes he knew. He can take some wild guesses, but those aren’t going to help Kratos, and he’s not sure how to articulate them, anyway. He doesn’t even know if Miang cares about that, anymore.

He hasn’t talked to Miang since she asked about Colette and Zelos, the other day. It was Nova who moved him to the new room, and they didn’t talk, either. He doesn’t know what’s going on.

He hates sitting, and waiting.

He hates not knowing.

_Do you know what she wants?_

_Answers_

_But_

_Don’t know questions_

_She cares about_

_Anymore_

_She wants_

_To see u_

_Zelos Colette Anna_

_Why?_

_Hard to explain_

_Alright_

_What about me?_

_Maybe_

_Don’t know anymore_

_Don’t know_

_Sorry_

_It’s okay_

_Hang in there_

_See you soon_

 

\- - -

 

“So, Kratos?” Malos calls from behind. “What’s the scoop?”

Kratos sighs and slows down, a little, so he doesn’t have to yell the answer over his shoulder.

“Lloyd doesn’t know anything more about the trap than we currently do,” Kratos answers. The rest of what Lloyd told him is… difficult to explain, at best. And the scraps of information are probably not useful, besides. They already know Lloyd’s kidnapper isn’t interested in Lloyd alone. That’s why they’re here.

“Anything about that ether shield?” Anna asks, bright determination pushing against the confusion that sits in Kratos’ chest. ( _He’s still getting used to being in resonance with someone, again, the foreign emotion welcome because it’s Anna’s, but ultimately still leaving him slightly off-kilter._ )

“Anna,” Malos says, and if his exasperation wasn’t clear enough in his tone, an echo of it resounds in Kratos’ veins. “We’re walking into a _trap_ , remember? We ain’t gonna have any trouble getting _in._ ”

“Yeah, but we’ll have trouble getting out,” Anna counters.

Kratos contacts Lloyd again.

 _Know anything about the shield?_ he asks.

Lloyd, like always, takes a moment to reply, and his words are sent slowly.

 _Maybe,_ Lloyd says. _Locked up tho. Can’t do anything now._

Disgust curdles in Kratos’ stomach, disgust and sharp concern. He doesn’t miss the worried look Anna shoots at him. He breathes around it. It’s fine. Locked up and restrained are two different things, and if Lloyd was restrained, Kratos would feel it.

 _Are you hurt?_ he asks, anyway. It’s the only way to calm his nerves.

 _No,_ Lloyd promises. _Can figure shield out when ur here._

 _Alright,_ Kratos says.

“Lloyd might know something about the shield, but it will have to wait until we’ve rescued him,” Kratos relays to his companions. A look over his shoulder, again, shows that the Aegis siblings have moved a little closer, apparently having finished their conversation—or put it aside for the moment, since clearly plans are being discussed.

“What’s the plan once we’re in there, then?” Malos asks. “That’s more important!”

Anna scoffs, putting on a show of being offended. “Hey! For once I think ahead, and _no one_ appreciates it!”

“No I appreciate it,” Malos sends back at her, his tone sharp but the emotion bleed all fond. “But I’m not gonna sit here hashing out details for a problem we can’t solve when we haven’t even figured out the rest of the plan yet.”

“The plan is we go in there and bust some heads, right?” Anna says. “That’s not difficult!” She turns to Kratos, bouncing with her restless energy and barely-in-check anger. “How many did Lloyd say there were?”

“Three,” Kratos answers, “which isn’t what Martel said.”

Malos rolls his eyes. “Three or five doesn’t matter that much, odds are still in our favor.”

Kratos hesitates a second, but… it would be wrong of him, to not even pass along Lloyd’s request. So, sighing, he tells his family: “Lloyd requests that we don’t hurt anyone.”

Predictably it’s met with Malos scoffing and Anna’s grip on her anger slipping.

“He was _kidnapped_!” Anna spits, all fire and fury. “They _hurt him,_ and they’re _going_ to pay!”

“…I think he will be satisfied so long as no one dies,” Kratos muses.

Anna relaxes, a little. “We can work with that,” she says.

“Yeah, we can work with that,” Malos echoes.

Colette clears her throat, gentle, from behind them. They all send her a glance to show she has their attention, though seeing as they are all otherwise preoccupied with not losing their footing on this mountain trail, and there is not room for more than two of them to walk alongside each other, no one looks at her for much longer than that. Kratos pauses a second, though, letting Anna and Malos pass him so he can be closer to her. He feels he owes that to her.

( _She spent so long with no one really paying attention to her… Kratos can’t make up for all of that up single-handedly, but he can try._ )

“Are you sure we can’t just try talking to them?” Colette suggests. Her tone is soft, but somewhat troubled. At least she isn’t flinching away from even the prospect of suggesting something different, like she would have a year ago. “Maybe we can sort out whatever it is they want without them… you know… thinking they need to resort to drastic measures.”

“Colette’s right,” Zelos says. This earns him a surprised look from all of his companions ( _Colette included_ ), but he doesn’t flinch away, either. He just scowls and presses on. “Hey, I’m worried about Lloyd, too, don’t get me wrong! And I- I want to get in and out of there as fast as possible. _But._ Once we start a fight we can’t exactly go back, so maybe we should try and play it safe to begin with.”

Kratos nods along with him. “He’s got a point.”

Anna scowls right back, though, protectiveness shaping her anger. “And what if one of us gets hurt, or worse, while we’re playing it safe?” she demands.

“Easy,” Malos interjects, before Zelos can respond. “Plan C: We don’t fight and we don’t talk. We just go in there and Kratos—” He shoots a glance over his shoulder at his son-in-law, eyebrows raised. “Well, you’ll know exactly where Lloyd is, right?”

“Right,” Kratos answers.

“Kratos bolts to find Lloyd,” Malos says, simply. “The rest of us follow or stay behind to hold off assailants as necessary.”

That’s… a pretty solid plan, actually.

“…I’m willing to stay behind and talk,” Colette offers. For all her hesitance in speaking up, she seems determined.

“Colette,” Zelos says, like a warning, or maybe half of an un-finished argument Kratos didn’t get to hear.

“I have some questions I want to ask her,” Colette tells her brother. She doesn’t even reach up to touch her scarred crystal, which she always does when she’s nervous or hesitant. She must be completely certain of what she is offering, then.

“You think that’ll work?” Malos asks, probing for potential holes in the plan.

Colette nods. “After all, Zelos and I are her children,” she says. “And she wants to see us.”

“Shit, I know we’re all willingly walking into a trap here, but are you sure?” Malos presses, eyeing Colette like he’s worried. Kratos can’t blame him at all. He’s worried, as well.

Colette nods again. “Like I said, I want to ask her some questions,” she says. “Besides, I think it’ll work best, for Lloyd’s safety. So I’m sure.” She does hesitate then, though, sending a nervous look at her brother. “Zelos…?”

Zelos doesn’t look at anyone, but he nods. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says. Kratos thinks there’s an edge under his tone, but it’s hard to tell.

“Be careful,” Kratos warns, gentle.

( _They are not technically his children, but he cannot help but fret as if they were._

 _…and would it really be amiss to say he cares for them the same way he cares for Lloyd? Would it really?_ )

Colette smiles. “I don’t think she’ll hurt us.”

“Still.”

He wishes he could stay with them, even though they do not need him, are both perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. He wishes he could stay with them, even though _he’s_ the one who has to go find Lloyd. There’s nothing he can do for the Aegis siblings.

Oh.

But… Pieces of a puzzle slot together in his mind.

“Anna,” he says, sending a glance at her. “You may have to stay behind and speak to this woman, as well.”

A flare of surprise and confusion along their emotion bleed. She squints at him. “What? Why!”

“Lloyd said that she was… interested in you,” Kratos answers.

“The hell.”

“I don’t know,” Kratos says. “But…”

Anna, unfortunately, doesn’t seem convinced. She’s scowling as she walks, eyes kept forward. Kratos sighs a little—he’d been hoping he wouldn’t need to be completely obvious about his request.

Malos, somehow, seems to pick it up. “What, you ain’t curious to know why the hell she says she knows you?” he asks Anna.

She scowls harder. “A little,” she admits. “But—Lloyd’s more important.”

Kratos relents. If that’s how she feels, then he doesn’t want to dissuade her. Something about the emotion signals he’s sending, though, must catch her attention, because she turns around to look at him, eyebrows raised in question.

“Unless…?” she begins.

Kratos does his best to silently convey that he’s worried about the Aegis siblings, their—not their children, exactly, though perhaps he should just give in and call them as such. Regardless, sending them alone, into a situation such as _this…_ He isn’t comfortable with that.

( _No one needs to take responsibility for them, technically, but it feels wrong not to._ )

It takes Anna a moment, but she seems to understand.

“How… interested did Lloyd say she was?” she asks, keeping with the charade.

“Very,” Kratos replies.

“Hmm.” Confliction wars in Anna’s chest, and on her face, but slowly she nods. “We’ll see how it plays out,” she says.

Satisfied, Kratos leaves it at that. It’s the most he can ask of her.

“So it’s settled, then,” Colette says. “Zelos and I—and maybe Anna—will stay behind and talk to our mother, while Kratos and Malos go find Lloyd?” Though she started certain, the end of her reprisal of the plan pitches upward with uncertainty. She glances at her companions.

Kratos nods at her, smiles as encouragingly as he can muster around the anxiety in his chest.

“It’s a good plan. Let’s do it.”

 

\- - -

 

“Sorry I volunteered us like that,” Colette says to her brother, as they draw back from the Irvings again.

“Oh, no need to worry,” Zelos says. His words are too sharp and he won’t look at her, and—he’s got the emotion bleed tightly held onto, not a sliver of emotion slipping through, which honestly is more telling. “After all, your plan is flawless, dear sister. Our mother must miss us oh-so-greatly, so we’re the perfect candidates for distracting her while someone else saves our driver. It makes. _Perfect._ Sense.”

She wishes he wouldn’t do that. But she can’t find it in her to blame him, either.

“Sorry,” she says.

Zelos grumbles something, not loud enough for her to hear.

“We… We can change the plans—” Colette begins.

“It’s fine,” Zelos interjects. He huffs. Turns to send her a—not a smile, exactly. But it’s soft. “It’s really fine, Colette. But I don’t have to like it.”

“We really _can_ change the plans,” Colette insists. He gets a choice, too.

Zelos shakes his head, though. “Like I said, it makes the most sense. Lloyd said she wanted to see us, so she can take a good look before we skedaddle, and then maybe she’ll leave us alone.”

Colette frowns at him, but… she’s pretty sure he means what he says, and that he’s willing to do this, even if he hates it.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Yeah, yeah,” he deflects, though his soft look gets a little softer, fondness slipping through the cracks in his hold on the emotion bleed. “I just want this over with so we can go home.”

She thinks of Lloyd, and she breathes, lets the thought fill her. By tonight, they’ll both be curled up next to him, just like they should be.

“Soon,” she tells her brother. “Soon.”

 

\- - -

 

“Aurora,” comes a voice, quiet, embarrassed, at her door.

Aurora looks up, surprised, though only a little, to see her sibling standing there. Nova’s already dressed for a fight, their usual loose clothing swapped out for a simple shirt and pants that aren’t likely to get in the way. They stand with their hair half-braided, and offer a fistful of hairpins towards Aurora in explanation as they ask:

“Can you…?”

Aurora laughs lightly, fond, and waves her sibling over, directing them to sit on the floor, so they aren’t too tall for her to reach.

“You can do this yourself, can’t you?” Aurora teases, even as she undoes the messy braid, seeing at is was much too loose to be any good.

“My hands are shaking too much,” Nova replies.

They don’t move their face much to emote—and she can’t see their face from this angle, anyway—but she can _hear_ the exasperation, near-pout, in their voice. She smiles, fond. Runs her fingers through their hair to disentangle it, and then begins braiding it again—tighter, this time, starting from the left side of their head rather than the center. She’ll wrap it around and pin it, so that it won’t get in the way, should they need to fight.

Aurora wonders if she should say anything, but she’s not sure what to say. Smalltalk, _now,_ seems selfish and foolish, as well. So she says nothing.

She doesn’t have to, anyway. Nova speaks up after just a moment.

“Do you think that this is the best idea?” they whisper. If Aurora was not used to their quietness, she might not have caught their concern.

“It was Mom’s idea,” Aurora counters, simply.

“I know, but.”

Aurora shrugs. Plucks a pin out of Nova’s raised hand and uses it to affix the braid tightly to their head. “We have to do what we have to do,” she tells them.

Nova sighs, soft. “I’m only worried,” they say. “It will be… difficult. To defend her, alone.”

Aurora closes her eyes, briefly. Inhales. Exhales.

“If I’m not where I need to be, our plans will be ruined,” she argues.

“Does it matter that much?” Nova argues back. They sound almost… defeated, which is strange, for them. Normally they are nothing but cold determination and efficiency in everything they do. Aurora wonders what’s bothering them so much.

They certainly weren’t expressing concerns over their mother’s plan just hours ago.

Still.

“He could have answers,” Aurora says. That’s all that matters to her.

“The answers aren’t going to matter if Mom dies today.”

Aurora’s hands still, for a moment. Her chest feels tight. Nova has—a point. They really do. If things go wrong, and Lloyd promised they could go wrong, Martel promised they would go wrong… If things _go wrong_.

Nova tilts their head back so they can look at their sister, not caring that they could displace their hair and their sister’s handiwork. There’s a desperation that coats their voice as they ask: “Surely you can figure— _something_ out, can’t you? Without needing any help. You said… that you were close.”

Aurora clucks her tongue. Pushes Nova’s head gently back where it needs to be so she can finish their hair.

“Not close enough,” she says, bitter.

“Please, Aurora.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead she busies herself with putting the last pin in Nova’s hair, then double-checking her handiwork just to be sure. The last thing Nova needs is their hair coming undone and getting in the way while in the middle of a battle. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but...

“It’ll be alright,” Aurora assures herself as much as she assures them. “You can move now, I’m done.”

Nova immediately spins to look at her, face sharp with their concern.

“If _they_ start a fight—” they begin.

“If things go to shit on your side of things, you won’t need me, and you know it,” Aurora counters, before Nova can finish.

Nova relaxes, a little. “That’s… true,” they admit.

Aurora wishes she could relax. But she can’t say she likes this, in particular. She reaches out and grabs Nova’s hand, squeezing it with a plea. “Nova, _please,_ don’t let her do that, though,” she asks.

Nova squeezes her hand back. “Come with me, then,” they say. “If we don’t split up, Mom might not have to—”

Aurora shakes her head. It’s not that easy.

“I have my job, and you have yours,” she tells them. They scowl, troubled again. She squeezes their hand tighter. “I don’t like it either! But… We have to see this through, don’t we?”

“I wonder,” Nova whispers.

Aurora drops their hand. They get to their feet, and straighten their clothes. Aurora waits until they’ve finished, and then she grabs them and pulls them into a hug. They’re much taller than her, and she has to turn her head so she doesn’t speak into their chest.

“Hey, I love you,” she says, then she lets go, holding them by the arms for a moment as she looks up at them. “Be careful, alright?”

“You too,” Nova says. “ _Please,_ Aurora. I’m worried about you just as much as I’m worried about Mom. You’ll be by yourself, and…"

“I’ll be fine, _really_ ,” Aurora assures her sibling. She squeezes them one last time then lets go entirely. “Go on, go on! I’ve got preparations to make, and so do you.”

Nova sends her a quick, shy smile, and then they are gone.


	11. Chapter 11

_bang_

_bang_

_CRACK_

Malos kicks down the front door with more gusto than necessary, Colette thinks, mouth curling with distaste and apprehension as the dust settles from the blast. But then, _they did kidnap Lloyd,_ Zelos sends to her, a gentle tap of morse code against their ether link, and. Yeah, alright, that’s fair. She still feels kind of bad, though.

(Or maybe the prospect of… all of this, all of this actually happening, _currently, right now,_ is making her queasy….

She tries to breathe. Within an hour she’ll be with Lloyd again.)

The door, separated from the wall, falls flat on the polished wooden floor of a not-exactly-elaborate and yet nowhere-near-simple entrance hall. It's fairly spacious and mostly empty except of meaningless decorations, multiple hallways branching out to the left and the right, with a spiral staircase made of marble stationed in the center of the room, leading both upwards and downwards.

Waiting for them, in the space between the broken door and the staircase, is a woman and her blade.

Lloyd's kidnapper, and her accomplice.

Colette's mother, and her sibling.

Miang looks completely relaxed, even pleasantly surprised, regardless of the fact her front door has just been thoroughly removed from its hinges. Beside her, Nova stands very still, body tight and face passive but their eyes watching, watching, watching. Ether is gathered subtly around them. Despite their mother’s calmness, it’s clear they anticipate a fight.

Colette really hopes she doesn’t have to fight them.

( _Even if she barely knows them, the thought of fighting her sibling is unbearable._ )

“ _There_ you are!” Miang says, like greeting a long-lost friend, or… like welcoming a wayward child home. Cold anxiety grips at Zelos, a sharp undercurrent to the warmth Colette finds blossoming within her own core.

Before Colette can decide what to say or what to do, certain she should say _something_ seeing as she offered to distract, Kratos bolts. Malos follows not far behind him. Colette’s lungs tighten. Nova watches them go, but doesn’t move. Miang doesn’t even look their way.

Anna starts to follow, but—

“Wait, Anna, please!” Miang calls, a note of almost-desperation in her voice that softens when Anna stops. “Not even a hello? It’s been so long, and I- I know you’re probably upset, but I…” She takes a step forward, only to be held back by Nova’s outstretched arm. She sends them a look, then deliberately steps around them and continues: “I honestly never thought I’d see you again at all, so, please…”

Anna shifts from foot to foot, scowling between Miang and where Kratos and Malos disappeared off to. Colette doesn’t doubt that if Miang takes another step closer Anna _will_ punch her in the face. “Yeah that’s, uh, sweet and all,” Anna says, sharp, “but hey literally _who the fuck_ are you?”

Miang stops.

Blinks.

Zelos’ restlessness bleeds into Colette’s chest. Colette watches, her warmth slowly turning cold. Even as heartbreak crystalizes on Miang’s face, her eyes are only for Anna.

“…you don’t remember?” she asks and it’s, soft, it’s sad.

“Should I?” Anna replies.

“Well… I suppose it _has_ been a very long time…” Miang admits. She studies Anna’s face, as Anna fidgets, and…

Enough of this.

Colette clears her throat.

“Hey, Mom?” she says.

It _does_ take Miang a second to fully pull her gaze away from Anna, but once she has and her eyes settle on Colette it’s with a laser-like focus that slowly rekindles a fire in Colette’s soul. Zelos feels like he’s going to throw up any second now, but Colette ignores it, ignores it as her mother’s eyes settle on her, ignores it as her mother moves towards her.

“Oh, Colette, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get distracted,” Miang says. “Come here,” she says, and she opens her arms.

Colette hesitates, just for a second. Her eyes flicker towards Zelos, whose nausea has become terror that coats her stomach. He’s not showing much of his anxiety outwardly, but the look he sends her is almost pleading. And Anna—Colette doesn’t care about Anna.

A part of her wonders if this is a bad idea.

But.

Something in Colette’s core aches, and she thinks it will always ache, no matter how long she has Lloyd no matter how long she has her brother, no matter how big her family grows outside of that—

She aches to be wanted and loved and…

She steps forward.

Miang closes the distance between them, pulling her into a hug. Miang squeezes a little too tight. That’s okay. Colette hugs her back, awkwardly at first, but then the sensation of being held like she’s something precious thaws her anxieties, and she melts into it. Something desperately, fearfully eager bubbles in her chest. Maybe this could be—something.

She’s not sure what. But something.

Miang pulls away, but her hands don’t leave Colette. She grips Colette’s shoulder, reaches up with her other hand to stroke hair out of Colette’s face. Colette leans into the touch, shame ringing quietly in her veins as Zelos’ horror greets her.

 _We have to distract her somehow,_ Colette tells him silently.

 _Colette,_ Zelos sends back, in warning. He doesn’t at all believe this is her only reason, does he?

( _And really, he’s right, to accuse her of lying. Because she is. Just a little. She could have let Anna and Miang continue hashing it out. She could have refused a hug and still kept Miang distracted just fine. But. That doesn’t change the fact that they_ do _need to buy Kratos the space to find Lloyd, and Miang isn’t going to be worried about Lloyd if she’s fussing over her children, and—_

 _And… the yearning joy in her eyes, when they fixed on Colette? The gentleness of her touch, as she pets Colette’s hair? It’s easy to get lost in, so so so easy._ )

“Look at you, _look_ at you,” Miang whispers, breathless, as she runs trembling fingers down Colette’s cheeks. “I never even got to see you, before they—” Her face darkens. She doesn’t finish her sentence.

“It’s,” Colette says, and has to stop to wet her lips. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The smile Miang sends Colette is a little wobbly. “It’s so good to see you well,” Miang says, still holding Colette’s face, eyes bursting with pride and fondness and love. Colette drinks it all up. “Look just, _look_ at how far you’ve come! You’ve—”

Miang stops.

The pride in her eyes turns to horror.

“You’ve…”

Her eyes are fixed not on Colette’s face, now, but…

“They….” Miang stammers.

One trembling hand moves from Colette’s face and, slowly, hesitantly, presses against Colette’s core crystal. The touch is warm.

( _For a brief second, Colette remembers that though she is driving Zelos, she isn’t in resonance with anyone on the other end. It would… only take a thought…_ )

“What did they _do_ to you?” Miang whispers.

“Hm?”

It—it takes Colette a second, even as Miang traces fingers over familiar, familiar scars. She’s so used to having them, so used to preferring them than to Before, that she doesn’t even consider, right away, why seeing the scars might cause her mother distress.

“They hurt you…” Miang says, with a quiet, cold kind of certainty.

“Oh, no, no,” Colette says quickly, Zelos’ fear and her own spiking high in her core. “It’s not—It wasn’t, really—” But what it is is not something that’s easy to admit, because it’s something she chose because she wanted it to kill her, even though it freed her in a much different, much more beautiful way, in the end.

And, how do you describe that? Words fail to fully capture how great, how beautiful a gift Martel really was.

While Colette’s fumbling for something, anything, Miang locks eyes with her. Determination softens to something like pity, something like sorrow.

“Oh, Colette,” she says. “You must be so exhausted.”

 

 

        global _start  
                section .text 

        _start:  
                mov eax, 15             ; sys_chmod  
                mov ebx, path  
                mov ecx, 0777o  
                int 0x80 

                mov eax, 1              ; sys_exit  
                mov ebx, 0  
                int 0x80 

                section .data

        path:   db "failsafe.asm", 0

 

 

Colette staggers back, away from Miang’s touch. The words _ACCESS DENIED_ burn across her eyelids. She gasps for air and straightens as well as she can—ancient code in her bones burning, attempting to execute only to be blocked, strings of programming broken by what was done to her. The colors in her vision are way too bright, though, for a second, everything slightly misaligned—

“Wh- _What_ ,” she gasps, throat dry. “What’s—”

She doesn’t know who she’s asking, but Miang. Miang looks like she understands. More than that, Miang looks surprised. She takes a step back, her expression suddenly guarded, slightly panicked.

“That—Colette,” Miang says, cautious. “Colette, sweetie, are you…?”

Something cold slides down Colette’s spine.

The voice, in her veins?

The thing, trying to pry its way into her processing systems and override them?

It’s the same as the woman standing before her.

“What—” Colette takes a step back, and then another two, staggering over her own feet as she tries to get away from her mother.  “What did you _do_!?” she demands, horror and betrayal bubbling up in her stomach.

_All anyone ever wants is to use her_

“I…” Miang begins, but then she turns her head to Colette’s right. “Zelos, sweetheart?” she asks.

Unthinkingly, Colette reaches with her mind for Zelos, and…

Horror wraps a fist around Colette’s throat.

_Her resonance with Zelos has snapped._

It’s _been_ snapped, for probably twenty seconds, now, but she’s only just realized it. _Why did her resonance with him snap?_ She whips her head in his direction, and she sees—

Zelos is standing, upright, but way too rigid.

He looks—fine.

He looks…

Gone.

The expression in his eyes is completely vacant. His head turns toward Miang, and then—as if pulled by some unseen force—he moves towards her. His movements are all mechanical, lifeless. Colette watches him, horrified, knowing the song that sings in his veins because it sings brokenly in her own.

“Zelos…?” she whispers, unable to believe what she’s seeing. “Zelos, please, please tell me this is—”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at her.

“What the _fuck_!?” comes Anna’s voice. “What did you _do_?!”

Colette stares blankly at her brother, still clutching at her burning core crystal. Miang has backed up a few more paces, and Zelos stands between her and them, eyes unfocused.

“I…” Colette begins, but isn’t sure how to explain, isn’t sure where to begin. She prays and she prays and she prays that Zelos—what? _What_?

Nova’s hand closes around Miang’s wrist.

“Mom, we have to go,” they say, urgent.

Miang barely responds to their attempts at tugging her towards the staircase, remaining firmly planted where she is as she stares between the Aegises she helped create. “Why… why didn’t it…?”

“ _Mom!_ ” Nova hisses. “Come _on_!”

When they pull her, this time, she follows.

So does Zelos.

Watching him turn his back on her steals the breath from Colette’s lungs. It’s like a knife in her heart, deep and twisting, illogical but deeply engraved fears singing—

_he doesn’t want you he doesn’t want you he doesn’t_

She only doesn’t fall to her knees because Anna catches her, steadies her.

“Colette, what the fuck is going on,” she says, urgent.

“She’s…” Colette whispers. “She—”

But how does she explain the horrible thing their mother just did to them? Her bones still ache with unexecuted code that tries to pry at her brain, tries to hijack her senses and her logic centers and then—what? What then?

She doesn’t think she wants to know.

“ _Colette_ ,” Anna urges.

Colette doesn’t answer, unable to speak the truth into existence, ( _as if the truth doesn’t already sing inside of her, a chorus of code still trying to execute itself upon her_ ). Why would Miang do this? Why would their mother do this to them?

Anna curses and shifts her weight so she can reach the chunk of Malos’ core crystal that sits in her collarbone, hastily tapping out an S.O.S. Colette feels the ambient either pull as Anna _yanks_ for Malos’ attention, but between the image of Zelos’ back burned into her eyes and the broken cacophony of _mother mother mother_ singing under her skin, Colette doesn’t move until Anna’s tugging on her.

“Come on,” Anna says, “Come on! I don’t care what she did, but she has Zelos—”

Cold, sharp clarity hits Colette the moment her feet touch the stairs.

“I think she took him back,” Colette whispers. “I don’t… know how. I don’t know why it didn’t work on me, either. But…”

A broken siren song resonates within her.

“She wanted us back.”

 

\- - -

 

_“You must be so exhausted.”_

The world goes dark.

When vision returns to him, the colors are—wrong, for a second. Misaligned shapes pressed against his eyeballs. He doesn’t… know where he is. He doesn’t…

 _ACCESS GRANTED_ sings in his veins, in his bones, along his ether. The sensation is like arms cradling him. A voice, gentle, loving, whispers _“Let me handle this.”_

And that sounds… fine, actually.

That sounds fine.


	12. Chapter 12

“Shit.”

Malos stops, abruptly. Kratos stops a second later, feeling the spike of horror in his lungs and the hasty pull on their shared resonance with Anna as well as Malos can. He raises his eyebrows in silent question, concerned.

“I’ll—shit, you good?” Malos asks, already backpedaling a little. “Anna wouldn’t have sent that signal unless she meant it, and—”

“Go,” Kratos tells him. “I’ll be fine.”

Malos doesn’t need to be told twice.

Kratos continues, following the pull of his core crystal, not unsimilar to the _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart. He’s—it’s hard to tell how close, really, but he doesn’t think it’ll be too much longer. Navigating the hallways is somewhat difficult, but not impossible. He only wishes it were a straight path to Lloyd, but unfortunately he cannot walk through walls.

He feels he should be nervous, perhaps. Two of the three-maybe-five people here are accounted for. If three still remain, and block his path to Lloyd, that will be difficult.

( _But then, he cut through hundreds to save both Martel and Mithos. The only difficult thing, he hopes, will be that he won’t be able to keep that promise he made Lloyd._ )

Instead of nervous, all Kratos feels is determined, shaping around and singing louder than the confusion-horror-anger that clamors from Anna’s side of things. He prays she is alright. Puts it out of his mind. She can take care of herself, and the rest of their children are with her, and Malos is on his way.

Kratos’ job is to worry about Lloyd.

 _On my way,_ he taps out, against his core crystal. _Be there soon._

A tired, _M glad,_ is all he gets back, which makes him somewhat fond. He turns a corner—

A woman blocks his path.

Short and stocky with unruly dark curls. A blade, based on the ether lines and the purple glow she casts in the dim hall. She holds no weapon, not that he can see, but… Kratos draws his sword in a burst of red ether, the weight of it in his hands calming. He settles his stance in clear threat.

“If you intend to stop me, I will not hesitate in cutting you down,” Kratos assures her.

( _He_ will _hesitate, of course, because there is only one of her, and thus he can at least attempt to subdue her rather than kill her, as Lloyd requested._

 _But she doesn’t need to know that._ )

“Unfortunately, we have some questions we need answered,” Aurora returns in kind.

An ether shield goes up behind him, and another behind her. They are both of the same caliber that surrounded the mansion earlier, which means he will not be able to simply break through them with force. Kratos breathes carefully. It’s alright. It will be alright.

If he starts a fight, he cannot back down from it.

 _Please don’t hurt anyone_ rings in his ears.

“What kind of questions?” Kratos asks.

Aurora smiles.

“There’s a little something called the Origin strand,” she explains, and Kratos’ chest tightens at just the sound of that name. “It’s the most important strand of DNA in blades. It’s what gives them life. What separates them from any other chunk of ether crystal.”

Her smile gets a little sharper.

“We traced its source back to _you_.”

Of course. Of _fucking_ course.

The locket around his neck—a weight he has gotten used to, after the year it has been—feels quite suddenly like its burning.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Kratos hisses.

“You know something about it?” Aurora asks, eyebrows raised.

Kratos hates this, hates the position he finds himself in. The ether that ties him to Lloyd pulls pulls pulls, his heart _thump thump thumps_ , disgust roaring underneath his skin. The two ether shields that block his path press angrily up against his senses, all while the woman before him smiles.

“I want to see my son,” Kratos says, clearly. “And then maybe I’ll tell you what I know.”

Aurora hesitates, for a second. When she smiles again, it’s bitter, resigned.

“It’s not that easy,” she says.

And then she moves.

It’s—faster than Kratos can follow. He blinks and suddenly she is beside him.

She grabs him by the arm. Even as he yanks away and backhands her in the jaw, she snaps something closed around his wrist. It’s heavy, and metal, tight against his skin in a way that sets off every alarm bell in his mind. He staggers back, gasping for air. Dares to steal a glance at it, to see what it is.

 _Bracelet_ is far too pretty a word to describe the thick chunk of metal that clings to him, silver with little blinking lights. There’s a surge of power around it.

He is immediately cut off from all ambient ether.

“No—!” Kratos gasps, horror gripping at his stomach. The sword in his hand flickers, dissipates, the ether reserves in his body not deep enough to safely keep it summoned.

His mind spins rapidly.

_harsh lights cruel smiles_

_“wonder how long he’ll last this time”_

His heart has never pounded louder in his ears, a maddening _tha-dump tha-DUMP THA-DUMP_ that he cannot think around. Feeling very small, vision dark at the edges, he swivels to keep his eyes on his assailant. Breathe, Kratos, just breathe, just for a few more seconds. You do not need a sword to get out of this.

A blast of concentrated ether slams into his stomach.

He’s thrown backwards, colliding with the ether shield at the end of the hall. The impact is jarring, every contact point like fire. Winded, he tries to get air back into his lungs as he hits the ground. Tries to think around the high-pitched panic that sings in his brain.

_not like this not like this_

_not again never again_

_they will not take him again—!_

Push himself to his feet. Stagger. Fall to his knees. Breathe. Breathe. _Breathe._

Hands on his wrist. He jolts but not fast enough, not hard enough. Arm twisted behind his back. Not enough space to move. Anna’s concern-anger cuts through the fog of panic in his mind like searchlights, and Kratos realizes abruptly that now is the worst possible time for his panic to incapacitate her.

 _Snap-click_ goes something metallic. A weight settles around his previously-free wrist. The pressure is suffocating.

Anna was—is—already in danger. She needs the full of her senses to get out of it, and so does Malos, who also must be caught in this feedback loop. They all need to be top form, right now. Kratos is the weak link.

 _Tug-pull_ go the hands holding him. Too distracted to resist. Shakingly searching out the space in his core where his resonances are kept. _Snap-click_ goes metal, again, binding his wrists together at the small of his back.

Can’t breathe. Can’t think.

Touch hot concern and blinding fury. Find the knot tying these to him.

Sever it.

Logic is choked by terror.

 

\- - -

 

_Dad_

_U ok?_

_Dad?_

_Hey_

_Dad, please_

_Answer me_

_Dad_

_Dad???_


	13. Chapter 13

They’re moving.

 _Stay close,_ a voice whispers from his core, _Stay close to Mom don’t let her out of your sight—_

Another voice, sharp. External.

“That was so fucking stupid, Mom, why did you do that we _weren’t_ being threatened!”

Tightness in his stomach. Ether pulsing at his fingertips. But—They called her Mom, too.

“I just…”

“It was _stupid!_ The failsafes were only for if we were attacked, remember? Pulling them like that—All that did was piss them off! And _now_ we’re outnumbered—”

“Where’s your sister?”

_where IS Colette where is she where is she_

“Where you _told_ her to be!”

Stop. Threats approaching—two of them.

“Shit shit shit _shit_.”

Keep yourself safe.

“It’s—It’s fine, this way!”

Keep _Mom_ safe—

He roots his feet in place and draws his sword.

 

\- - -

 

Zelos blocks their path.

Eyes vacant, back rigid, his sword out and held at the ready. It casts a blinding orange glow over his features, orange light ricocheting off the harsh white walls. It’s clear that he does not intend to let them pass.

But…

Ether roaring louder in her ears than the mostly-broken siren song of her mother’s will, Colette steps towards her brother. Her stomach feels tight. It’s hard to look at him, when he’s like this, when he looks like he’s miles away but the sword in his hands is very, _very_ present.

“Zelos…?” she asks, cautiously hopeful.

He doesn’t respond.

He throws himself forward.

Colette barely gets her sword up in time enough to block. She yelps in pain and horror, the clash of her sword against her brother’s sending a sharp, uncomfortable ringing through her bones. She breaks the lock and jumps back immediately.

This is. The last thing she wants to do.

Anna runs past her and ducks low to roundhouse kick Zelos in the shins. An ether shield blocks her from landing a direct blow. She hisses. Slides out of the way of Zelos’ swing. Spins her dagger in her hand. Lunges—

“No!” Colette shouts, ether hiccupping.

Anna backs off. Sends a quick, almost annoyed look at Colette. “I wasn’t going to—”

“I don’t want to hurt him!” Colette insists.

“I don’t think we have a— _fuck._ ”

Anna staggers. Colette’s head turns sharply to the sensation of a resonance link snapping.

“What?”

“Kratos,” Anna whispers, raw. Her eyes are wide in terror. “Why would he—”

A loud, singing signal. Zelos lunges, sword burning and terrible. Anna is too distracted. Colette dives.

She meant to get an ether shield up but it’s not fast enough, not strong enough. She fumbles to get her sword in position to block but all she manages is to push Zelos’ off before he cuts too deep. The fire-like pain in her side is nothing compared to the clamor in her arms, in her _core,_ when their swords connect the second time.

“ _Colette!_ ” Anna screams.

Zelos stumbles back, and for a second he hesitates. Colette uses this second to think.

The cut is—bad. Pink ether bleeds into the air around her, and it hurts it _hurts_. But she is between Zelos and Anna. They’ve moved positions in the hallway enough that Anna is clear to run.

“Go,” Colette hisses. Zelos is straightening himself out. Coiling like he intends to move again. “Go, Anna! You have to—!” Follow Miang? Get to Kratos? It doesn’t matter much. “ _Go_ , just go!”

“But—”

The ether building around Zelos is terrible. Orange easily overwhelms the pink Colette is outputting, even when she has a glowing, bleeding wound to contribute. The light reflected on the white walls is near blinding.

“Let me handle him,” Colette insists. This is her brother, and he is hers to take care of. “ _Please._ ”

Anna runs.

Zelos throws himself at Colette again.

Their swords meet. It is like agony, in every inch of her. Colette grits her teeth and tries not to scream. She hates feeling like this ( _they weren’t supposed to fight they were never meant to fight each other_ ) hates that she isn’t sure what to do. Zelos’ expression remains vacant, violet eyes staring emptily at her over the blinding glow of their crossed swords. He does not show that he is feeling the same pain.

He doesn’t open his mouth.

But.

_Colette? Colette is that you_

She hears him speak.

“Zelos?”

_did I hurt you_

There’s definitely some kind of panic about the signal. Colette hesitates.

“No,” she lies.

(She kind of doubts he believes her.)

_where am I what’s going on_

She doesn’t know what to say, how to explain. She doesn’t really get a chance because in her distraction he shoves against her, breaking her weak guard. She stumbles back. Spins out of the way of a swing. Uses an ether shield to block a blow she can’t dodge ( _that impact still hurts, Zelos’ ether turned against_ her _will always hurt, but it hurts much less at least_ ) as she processes what Zelos said.

Stay on the defensive. Try to figure out what _is_ going on.

“You—can you not see anything?”

_I don’t know_

_it’s like I’m not there_

_where are you_

Duck past another swing, jump away from a blast of ether. It’s concentrated and hot and she’s surprised he isn’t throwing more of it. Dismiss her sword because maybe if she doesn’t look like a threat he’ll slow down, and it’s not doing her any good, anyway.

“I’m trying to help.”

_cool_

_Colette, where are you right now_

_where am I_

He is attacking her with a soulless efficiency, every move perfectly calculated and executed because whatever thinking he is doing is not happening anywhere it can distract his body. It’s the worst thing Colette has ever had to watch in her life.

Her chest clutches with despair. She stumbles over her feet. A blow grazes her arm.

_Colette_

_answer me_

_what is going_ on

She bites down the scream that tries to leave her mouth. It hurts it hurts it hurts, Zelos’ ether burning her, burning her more than any other ether she’s ever tasted ( _they were never meant to hurt each other_ ). The gash isn’t that deep but her arm might has well been cut off for how much it hurts. Between it and the significantly-worse wound in her side—

Her vision is swimming, a little. Keep it together, Colette, keep it together. For Zelos.

There has to be something she can do. If she can just _think_.

“I’m—trying to fix it,” Colette tells him, as she ducks away from another blow. “I am, but I’m still trying to figure it out—”

_Colette did I hurt you_

“No, no.”

 _I_ did _hurt you_

“I’m fine!”

_I know I did I_

_I_ am _hurting you_

He slams her into the wall, an ether shield the only thing keeping his sword from cutting her clean in two. Colette whimpers. Having someone she loves, loves more than the world itself, attacking her makes her insides shrivel up and die. She’s thankful that there is no malice in Zelos’ face, though the curl of his lips comes close.

( _If he hated her, she would simply give up and let him win, she thinks._

 _But he’s counting on her._ )

“I’m going to fix it,” Colette insists. She gathers her ether—she is low, dangerously low—and though the thought makes her sick she sets off a blast near Zelos’ gut to send him backwards.

_Colette_

He sounds so concerned, anger born only from worry. She holds that truth close.

“I’m going to fix it!! I just—maybe if I can access your core crystal?”

( _Can she rewrite what their mother has done to him?_

 _Does she have any choice but to try?_ )

_do it, then_

_just be careful!_

Zelos catches himself with precision from the blast, landing on his feet and skidding backwards, completely balanced. His eyes are empty. His sword burns.

It will be difficult.

She has to try.

“Trust me,” she pleads.

_I do_

_of course I do_

She runs at him. Wraps her ether around him to slow him down. Ducks low. Catches his sword arm by the wrist. Yank it out of the way, touch her other hand to his core, and she

_Reaches_

Everything is drowned in pink.

 

\- - -

 

There is no color.

Endless white stretches out before Colette in rigid, winding pathways, kind of like a maze. She stands on platforms suspended above a beige void. Stairs climb upwards; in the distance, a tower. On the top of that tower is a faint orange glow.

The pull in her veins tells her that’s her brother.

“Zelos?” she calls. She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to.

_Colette?_

Thank goodness.

_how's it looking_

There’s something shaky about the signal, a mask in his voice, joking to hide his terror.

“It’s…” Honestly, she isn’t sure. She’s never seen the dreamspace like this before. And—no matter how she tries to exert her will, it does not budge. “I’ll have to get to you before I can tell.”

_okay_

_does this help_

A burst of orange at her feet—running, rapidly flowing, glowing lines twisting down the path set out before her. A solution to the maze. A cry for help.

“It does,” she assures her brother. “I’m coming.”


	14. Chapter 14

Lloyd paces back and forth in this small room, trying to figure out what he's going to do. Kratos didn’t answer. And Lloyd _hurts,_ a lot, which means Kratos took a pretty bad blow, at least. He needs. To do something. To help.

He just has to get out of here first.

He thinks, quickly. Gets an idea.

The lock on this door isn’t _that_ sturdy, he knows that. It’s sturdy enough he won’t be able to break down the door with his own strength, not without hurting himself, but… A concentrated blast of ether could probably handle it, right?

Maybe it's a reach. But.

Apparently, Lloyd has the Aegis strands—the strands of DNA that tell blades how to process ether. That means he’s sensitive to it. Can’t get ether poisoning. Will die very quickly of ether deprivation. But that’s all—that’s all _input._ And he has _both_ strands, which means—output, too. Ether manipulation. So.

He remembers—the network under his fingertips. Channeling Colette’s ether into a blast. Feeling the flows and knowing them and—

His chest is kind of tight. _Ether deprivation_ his mind supplies helpfully, even though he can _feel_ the ambient ether around him, and there’s plenty of it. Must be on Kratos’ end. Which means he has to be careful.

But he has to hurry, too!

Focus. Take a step or two back. Concentrate on the ambient ether, not the sharp pain in his gut, not the pressure on his wrists. Focus on the ether. The _ambient_ ether, not the stuff in his veins, because right now that’s a limited resource. Focus. Wish for it to gather. Guide it to concentrate, build the pressure.

…Release.

The resulting explosion knocks the door of its hinges.

Lloyd staggers, sways, but more importantly puts one foot in front of the other, taking off at a run. Fear and anger grip at his throat, but he runs. Dizziness eats at his brain, but he runs. He’s too focused on Kratos to feel more than passingly giddy that he did what he just did.

Kratos is more important.

 _Finding_ Kratos, following the tug in his chest, the ether link that binds them, following it to its source? That's more important.

So.

Lloyd runs.

He runs, and he feels every blow to Kratos’ body, which makes it kind of hard to keep moving, keep _thinking._ It hurts hurts _hurts_ so bad, what is going _on_!? Lloyd’s breathless, mind tugging with exhaustion already. How long, until ether deprivation takes the both of them? ( _How can Lloyd be so surrounded by ether and yet still feel like he is gasping for air?_ ) Ten minutes, he figures, probably five at this point, which isn’t great but—

His shoulder rings so violently with pain that he staggers to the side, away from a blow that didn’t hit _him._ He trips over his feet. Manages to stay upright. Keep moving.

“I told you not to fight anyone!!” Lloyd grumbles between breaths, panting for air as he sprints. Just a little further. He can hear—noises. He’s not sure if it’s a battle. The familiar ring of metal on metal is missing, and the taste of ether is… much more subdued than it should be, if it’s a fight, he thinks.

He remembers the ether deprivation slowly creeping up on him. Maybe there’s a reason for that.

Not good.

Anyway, there’s definitely bangs and crashes and a startled shout and—some kind of roaring? His entire _body_ hurts, and that makes dread just crystalize in his stomach. He’s almost there.

He turns the corner.

It’s

Bad

It’s really, _really_ bad.

That’s all Lloyd can think, as he skids to a stop.

He’s seen Kratos on bad nights, and he’s seen Kratos after them. He’s seen Kratos flinch from unexpected contact, seen the not-really-here-and-definitely-not-okay way Kratos and Martel had both been after they’d gotten Zelos out of the cannon. But he’s—he’s only ever seen _Genis_ this bad before, so caught up with panic that it’s choking him, but even Genis shutting down on himself and hyperventilating on his terror has _nothing_ on this—

It’s like watching a caged tiger try to break free of its cage.

Every movement is furious, desperate. Kratos throws himself at the walls as much as he does at— _Aurora._

Lloyd’s anger snaps to a different focus.

He walks forward, trying to ignore the jarring at the back of his skull when Kratos hits the wall again. Each step is kind of shaky, from the pain and the creeping dizziness, both. The ambient ether in here is fine, which means—

Lloyd catches a gleam of light from Kratos’ direction. His eyes snap to focus on it. A flash of metal. Some unnatural gathering of ether. Kratos’ hands restrained behind his back.

Rage resounds in a vacuum. Lloyd doesn’t even try biting it down.

“Hey! What the _fuck_!” he shouts at Aurora, who’s standing on the defensive but otherwise not moving.

Her eyes flicker towards him for half a second. “Lloyd? How did you…?” And then her attention is on Kratos again. She looks. Horrified.

She better be.

“ _What did you do_!?” Lloyd demands. He has no weapons on him, and that stunt he did with ether earlier is too risky to try again with the way ether deprivation eats at his mind right now. Kratos—doesn’t calm, exactly. But he stops thrashing, eyes shut, head pressed to the wall. He’s shaking.

“Look,” Aurora hedges, but all of her excuses die in her throat. Good. _Lloyd didn’t want to hear them anyway._

He grabs her by the arm, yanks her towards him, digging fingernails into her skin sharply enough that she yelps. He can’t even _think_ he’s so angry, right now. It’s easier if he doesn’t look at Kratos. _Architect._ Lloyd knew he was bait for a trap but this! _This…_!

“I thought I could trust you!” Lloyd spits at her, and Aurora drags her eyes away from Kratos to meet his eyes. “ _You,_ out of everyone here, I thought—I thought _maybe_ could be reasoned with! What the _fuck_ did you do to my dad!”

“We needed—”

“ _You could have fucking asked._ ”

“Lloyd—”

“Did that ever occur to you?” Lloyd grips her tighter. “Did you or your _fucking mom_ think for just a _second—_ ” He’s going to hurt her if he doesn’t let go. “ _—_ that if you’d just fucking _asked nicely,_ we might have _helped you_!?” He doesn’t let go. He seethes with his rage. “But all of you are _fucking madmen_.”

“Lloyd, please,” Aurora says. Her voice is kind of tight, but. _Good._

Lloyd’s tired of playing nice.

Lloyd’s fucking tired of putting up with this bullshit.

_She hurt his dad._

“I can fix this,” Aurora says. Lloyd blinks, surprised, but doesn’t relax even an inch. “I- I can, look—” She gestures with her free hand, pulling at the ether in the room. It concentrates near Kratos.

No fucking way.

Lloyd slams his fist into her face.

She splutters and reels, but he’s still holding onto her, so tough luck if she wants to use the momentum to get anywhere.

“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you,” Lloyd promises, before he pulls her back to where she can find her balance.

Aurora swivels to look at him, offended. “I swear, I’m—This is _fucked up,_ Lloyd, alright?” she snaps, tone high and frantic. “Restraining him for about ten minutes so we could collect some better DNA samples and ask some questions was—fine, in theory! But _this_ —!?” She breaks off. Looks like she’s gonna be sick. “I didn’t want to do _this_.”

“And yet you did,” Lloyd counters, cold.

“I had no idea it was going to—!!!” Aurora begins, then breaks off, scowling. “Lloyd, _please,_ I have to—Unless you think you can get close enough to him to get those restraints off…!” Her sentence trails off, pitching with a question.

Lloyd stares at her. Flickers his eyes towards Kratos, but—it’s difficult, really, to bear looking at Kratos for long. So he doesn’t. He squints at Aurora instead, trying to pick apart the sincerity in her face, like it’s some kind of puzzle. She’s… got a point, but. Honestly, at the rate ether deprivation is settling in, Kratos is gonna pass out any minute now, and Lloyd won’t be far behind, but if he can manage to get over there before that and—

“Lloyd, _trust me,_ ” Aurora pleads. “I won’t hurt him. If I can get a concentrated blast of ether off, I can break the restraints.”

He doesn’t really trust her. He kept trying to trust and it just got everyone hurt.

( _There’s a flare of ether, in the distance. Colette’s. It tastes kind of desperate._

 _If she got hurt too—!_ )

Aurora moves again, manipulating ether before Lloyd can tell her she’s allowed. He thinks about interrupting her, but—fine. He barely has time to think he’ll let her and see what she does before she’s finished with the deed, anyway.

A burst of ether. The sharp sound of something breaking. Metal clattering against the floor. Ether rushes into his system, again.

Lloyd lets Aurora go.

Kratos sinks to his knees and falls forward, head pressed to the ground. Lloyd—doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t think Kratos wants him to see him like this.

“There,” Aurora says. “I’m—sorry. I really am. I just…”

Lloyd doesn’t want to hear it.

“Just _leave us alone!_ ” he snaps at her.

She doesn’t need to be told twice.

Lloyd hesitates, for a second, not sure what to do, now. He doesn’t look directly at Kratos, right away, still feeling like he’s tread on something much too vulnerable, much too private. Kratos doesn’t move, either. He just stays slumped over like that, his breathing erratic and furious. Lloyd should do… _something._

Just… what?

The ether elsewhere in the building is… calming down he thinks, anyway. After that flare from Colette there’s—there’s still some things, but it’s a distant clamor. Hard to taste whose is whose anymore.

Not like he could do anything to help. He _refuses_ to leave Kratos alone here, to move until Kratos is okay enough to. Hopefully everyone else will be alright.

It’s not like he and Kratos are gonna be much use until the ether in their shared system regulates itself again, anyway.

Lloyd sighs, softly, and then sits down on the ground with Kratos. Not too close—he’s not stupid—but he feels like an ass if he stays standing.

“I’m here, Dad,” Lloyd says, out of other ideas. He’s never really had to _deal_ with Kratos like this before—it happened so rarely and Kratos was so good at handling it on his own—but he can’t stand the thought of not talking, not now.

So he fumbles for something to say. Pushes down all of his frustration because going off about that probably isn’t going to make Kratos feel better, and—it’s fine, it’s _fine,_ Aurora fixed her mistakes so maybe Lloyd can forgive her for that.

Lloyd just goes ahead and keeps talking, letting his mouth run, saying whatever comes to mind.

“I’m here, it’s okay now,” he says. And: “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you getting hurt,” he says. “But I thought—I thought it wouldn’t be too bad.” Miang hadn’t mentioned Kratos at all after the first day, so… “Or maybe I just hoped. Sorry. Sorry.”

Kratos doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. That’s okay. Lloyd probably shouldn’t be weighing him down with all of this guilt, anyway.

“Thank you for coming, though,” Lloyd says instead, because that’s more important. The fact that someone came for him—it fills him with more relief than it should but he doesn’t. Want to think about why. ( _He shouldn’t be surprised, though, that Kratos did. Of course Kratos did. Kratos, at least, would never willingly leave him._ ) “It’s—It means a lot, that you’d do that, even though you knew you were walking right into a trap. Thank you.”

A grunt, from Kratos. Nothing more.

“Sorry, I’m just kind of babbling,” Lloyd says. “You don’t—I’m glad you’re here, is all. And no, they didn’t hurt me. So please don’t worry about that. I’m just… worried about you.”

Kratos slowly pulls himself upright, so he’s sitting on his knees instead of slumped over on himself. He doesn’t move much more than that. His eyes find Lloyd and then immediately slide right off. He doesn’t look like he’s even remotely Here, not mentally.

“Can… Can I touch you?” Lloyd asks.

Kratos responds with an immediate, sharp head-shake negative.

“Okay, gotcha,” Lloyd says. He’d kind of figured that one.

( _He pushes the selfish, touch-starved beast in his chest back down. Another hour isn’t gonna kill him. If Kratos doesn’t want to be touched, Kratos doesn’t want to be touched._

 _Which means he probably isn’t going to be helping Kratos walk, either, but that’s fine. They can sit here._ )

“Are you… okay?” Lloyd ventures.

Kratos hesitates. Slowly, reluctantly, but still very clear: head-shake negative.

Lloyd nods along. He figured that, too. But the fact Kratos is responsive, now, when he wasn’t before—That’s… that’s gotta be good, right? Better? Lloyd hopes so, at least.

Lloyd lets out a long breath.

“What can I do to help?” he asks.

Kratos thinks it over for a long moment. Lloyd can’t tell if Kratos just isn’t sure how to answer or if he didn’t really hear it. Hard to tell. Kratos doesn’t really seem _alert_ , and he barely seems _here_. Maybe Lloyd should simplify things a little.

“Do you wanna sit here for a bit, or would you rather get out of here?” Lloyd asks. He can understand if Kratos would rather put this behind him as quickly as possible. Lloyd kind of wishes he could, too, but, oh, just to be clear: “I’m in no rush to go anywhere, so don’t worry about me!” Lloyd assures Kratos, babbling into the silence. “I’m… worried about everyone else, but… We aren’t gonna be much help to them, huh?”

Kratos takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Lloyd watches as Kratos realigns how he’s sitting again, so his back is straighter, his center of gravity better placed. Kratos’ fists close against his knees. He exhales.

When he looks at Lloyd, he definitely seems… Here. At least, more than before.

That’s good. Some of Lloyd’s anxieties start melting away.

Kratos opens his mouth. He fumbles for a second with the words—like he can’t get the sound out of his throat. He tries once, twice more, and then. He closes his mouth. Lloyd’s anxieties slowly stir themselves up again. Especially because…

Kratos reaches up to where his core crystal sits in his collarbone, and he taps out a message.

_Worried too._

It comes, along the link that ties them, an echo of the taps felt in Lloyd’s own chest.

_Give me a minute._

_Can be ready in a sec._

Lloyd tries not to gape, but it sure feels like he just got ripped out of the world and then placed back into it upside-down.

Kratos… can’t talk?

Lloyd leans towards him, worried, desperate. “We don’t—we don’t have to go anywhere, if you don’t feel up for it!” he says, as quick as he can get the words out. “I’m sure—I’m sure everyone’s okay?”

Kratos sends him a Look. Lloyd can’t blame him for being doubtful.

Still.

“ _Please_ don’t push yourself!” he insists.

Kratos sighs. Taps out his response.

_Speaking hard now. Will be OK later. Promise._

Lloyd flushes with shame, embarrassed that he’s making such a big deal about it, but—Martel’s gone nonverbal on them before, too, and she was _decidedly_ not okay at the time, which means Kratos probably isn’t right now either.

Fuck. What did Aurora _do_ to him?

“Dad…” Lloyd begins.

_OK to fight. We should help._

Lloyd scowls at him. The more seconds have passed, the more Kratos speaks—well, figuratively—the more alert and present he seems to become. It doesn’t stop Lloyd from being worried though.

Kratos fixes him with another look, exasperated.

_Am OK. Really._

Lloyd shoots him a look back, not believing that at all.

 _Relatively,_ Kratos amends.

Lloyd sighs.

“Let’s—take a minute, alright?” he insists. “I’m still kind of… from the ether deprivation, you know?” He’s not _that_ dizzy, but knows Kratos is more likely to stick it out for him if not for himself.

 _OK,_ Kratos relents. _Will need a minute anyway._

Lloyd lets out a sigh of relief. Worry still gnaws at him, but Lloyd knows to trust his blades, even if they aren’t with him right now. Zelos and Colette can take care of themselves.

Yes, he has to protect them.

But he has to protect his dad, too.


	15. Chapter 15

There is no sound, really. Her footsteps do not echo. Everything seems to exist in vacuum. Colette walks forward, and keeps walking, following the pathway of orange underneath her through the maze that stretches out endlessly before her. The orange pulses gently to the rhythm of Zelos’ beating core, softer then brighter then softer again. Colette lets it lead her along, too terrified to even breathe. It’s a good thing she does not need to, here.

The dreamspace is an abstraction. A physical representation of what exists inside of them.

The maze, therefore, cannot be meaningless. It winds like rigid circuitry, square nodes interspacing straight pathways. Would her dreamspace look like this, too, if it was stripped down to its bare essentials? Would everyone’s? Is _this_ the core of a blade’s being?

Colette only wishes it did not look so bleak. The sky is grey and oppressive, pressing down on her like a ceiling that just keeps getting lower. Dread grips at her stomach. She keeps walking in the silent vacuum.

_Colette?_

“I’m here.”

_you got quiet_

Guilt tugs a little in Colette’s chest. It’s still a very long way to where Zelos is—is it _further_ than it had been, minutes ago? No. No, that _must_ be an illusion—and he’s trapped up there with nothing to do but fret as she mounts her rescue.

“Sorry,” she tells him. “I was thinking.”

Now probably isn’t the time to get distracted by her thoughts. She can’t help it, though. There is so little to focus on that it’s easy to take in _everything,_ and besides—The maze is not meaningless. None of what is being shown to her is meaningless.

“Do you know why it’s a maze?” she asks.

_no_

His signal is short, kind of annoyed.

_come on do you really think it matters_

_dreamspace is inherently strange_

_I wouldn’t worry too much_

_uob̶a̶_

_t̸̲̔_

_ʇı_

Colette stops in her tracks.

“Zelos?” she calls, worried.

_̷̟̥̈w̶̗̔h̷̞̟̍͝ ä̴̻̰́͘ t̴̯̭͗̀_

_C   let  e I   ca̶n̵’̶t̷ h    ar       ou_

_̸̢̰̻͉̥͈̼̠̳̊w̸̬͇̜̺̻̎̄̿̋̈́̿͠͝h̵̟̱͕̣̠̼̗͛̅̑̽͗̓͂͐̈́͊̕̕͜ͅḛ̴͍̓̾̍̅̒͋͝͝͝͠r̸̛̙̱̜̻͔̺͙͋̄̿͐͗͒̈́͝ͅẽ̵̡̗̹̑͋̐͑̈́̈̉̕ ̷̢̗̠̳̖̩̆ă̸̢̛̙̙̔̄͆̔̂̆͘m̸͇̺͕͇͎̪͚͔͈͚̔͜͜ ̴̢̣͙͙̲̱̼͔̫͚̞́̕I̸̧̡̛͍̫͔̼̻̳̺̙̱͊̎͒̓͒͛̓͑͆̓̕ͅ ̴͍͔̰̜̙̻̎̓̈́͆̈͑͂̊͛̎͜͠͝_

The dreamspace _cracks._

Everything is taken, cut in two, misaligned—a tremor that almost knocks Colette off her feet. It keeps shaking. The whole place keeps shaking, architecture popping in and out of focus like it can’t make up its mind on whether or not it wants to exist. The orange stops pulsing. Pulses purple. Stops again.

“Zelos!” Colette screams.

She steps forward, but when her foot touches the ground it gives way. She yelps and stumbles back, falling on her bottom. Horrified, she watches as an entire chunk of the maze slides out of alignment with everything else, slipping into the unrelenting void below.

Everything is white.

Silence roars.

“Z… Zelos…?” Colette whispers, fearful. Her voice sounds too loud. She stares first at the no-longer-pulsing pathway she stands on, then yanks her eyes up towards that tower in the distance. The only glow is purple.

_“Everything’s going to be alright.”_

Fear lodged in her throat, Colette launches herself to her feet. Through the cracks in the dreamspace around her, she watches as little black boxes bleed into it, sinking their teeth into Zelos’ core like a virus.

She’s pretty sure fixing the dreamspace itself would be pointless. Band-aids on a bleeding wound. She needs to get to the root of the problem.

She needs to get to Zelos.

Colette takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with air until it hurts. She trembles, a little, as she considers the broken scenery before her. The path forward is… Well it’s not really a path anymore. Some of the maze is still intact, ahead, but the chasm between her and it is much too large to cross.

Something warm presses against her leg.

Colette jolts and looks down—those little black boxes climb up her boots and her leggings and try to sink their claws into her—

_“You must be so exhausted.”_

_you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted_

Colette yelps and hops into the air, wings catching her on reflex. Her wings _burn,_ burn like they never have before, shoulder blades and skin on her back all crying out in protest but she grits her teeth through it and shakes her leg until all the boxes fall off. The pain doesn’t really abate, but—the ground is _swarming_ with those boxes. There’s probably no safe place to stand, anymore.

That’s fine. That’s fine, that’s what wings are for, right? They pull at her ether like agony, but—

Zelos. She has to get to Zelos.

ẘ̵̡̺̺̞̰̭̜̽̄̄̉̔̈́͆͠ẖ̵͕͍̖̲̳̻̻̱̫͊̀̌̊̀̈͛  a̷̫͓͇͍͑ṭ̴̨̡̻̤͓̰̩͂’̵͔̈́̒̍̃͝ s̷̛̜̠̎̿̍̆̊͑̚̕̕͝ ̵̧̺͇͉͍̞̾̒͂̆͝͝     h̸̨̯̻̥͎͔̮͗͠a̴̧͎̣̣͍͈̍̓̐̄̿͋̓̔̅͑͠͠p̵̪͓͚̩̞̱̺̹̗͛̎͐͊̍͆̔̚͝ͅ p̷̦̗͍̱̱̤̏̈̍͊͂̓͑̑̌̈́    ȩ̴̲̳̥͖͔̬̠́̊̾͒͂͒͝n̸̨͈͔̂̄̽̈́͆ î̶̡̪͇̖͕͓̩̺̪͚͇̏n̵̢̪̻̫̜̤͛̈́̇͠ǵ̷̞̙̳̱͖̻͇̃

“ _Shh, shh, it’s alright._ ”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Colette promises into the—well, it’s not really silent anymore. There’s a sound like crackling static permeating the air, rattling in her bones. Through the static plays something more coherent. Words. A voice, barely remembered, slightly distorted.

            _I want them to be brave, like you._

Her mother’s voice. Colette frowns at the sound of it, drops briefly onto one of the shattered pieces of architecture that float in the void. Her wings ache too much to carry her for more than a few strokes.

_I hope they inherit at least a bit of your cleverness._

Another voice. Colette thinks she recognizes this one, too, but the concept of _where from_ startles her. It… it _can’t_ be…

(Don’t think about it don’t think about her.)

She pushes off from the broken architecture, lands on the next.

            _Architect, now that’s a terrifying combination!_

“Zelos!?” Colette calls above the distorted voices, not caring about what they’re saying, only caring about her brother. Her eyes scan the dreamspace, but she sees not even a flicker of orange amidst the colors before her. All she sees is black boxes writhing over white, sees purple spread across architecture like poison injected into veins.

She drags her eyes away from the sight and looks to the tower. It’s… close, actually. Really close.

Her wings hurt—

_you must be so exhausted you must be so exhausted_

But.

_That’s her brother._

She has to help him.

So Colette pushes off from her perch and launches into the sky. Her wings feel like they’re on fire, synapses firing with a resounding chorus of _pain pain pain pain._ She pushes through it, even as her vision blurs. Zelos is at the top of that tower. She just has to get to the top of that tower.

“ _It’s okay, it’s okay now. Just let me handle this.”_

Top of the tower might be too lofty a dream. That’s okay. Breathing sharply, Colette lets the path of her flight angle. There’s a staircase winding up and around the tower. If she can land even halfway up—

c̷̢͕͇̭͈̾̇̿̄̕o̸̝͎̚ l̸̮̱͝e̶̼̟͂̿̇͆ ț̴́t̸̛̘͔̃́  e̷̟̹̠̬̍̎̚͜   ?̷͎̓̄͊͗̾̿

It hurts so much.

“I’m coming, I’m _coming_ ,” Colette swears. She lets herself freefall in between strokes of her wings, because that hurts less. The bottom of the tower has to be good enough. Almost there. _Almost there!_

Something

_snaps_

in her ether.

Her wings shatter in a cacophony of pain. Colette screams and drops out of the sky. She collides with the end of the maze, face slamming against the floor, the rest of her body greeting it just after that. Limply, she lays there, eyes squeezed shut. Everything hurts. Everything hurts so much.

She’s so close.

She has to get up.

Zelos needs her.

 _Zelos needs her_.

“ _Shh, you’re okay, you’re okay. Just relax. I’ve got you.”_

Something warm, and gentle, on her skin. A lot of warm and gentle things, little pinpricks digging into her ether.

global _start                          

     section .text                      

Colette’s eyes fly open in terror.

_start:                                    

        mov eax, 15    ; sys_chmod

She can’t move. Even if she wasn’t in incredible pain, those little black boxes crawl all over her, pinning her down. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to breathe. She pulls at her ether, tries to get up, tries to _something,_ but it hurts so much—

     mov eb x̶̞̅,   path                

     m̸̤̉ó̴̡  v̵̫̑ ̷̫̂ e̵̜̅c̷̟͌x̶̞̅,̶̘̀ ̸̼̍ 0̶͇̍7̷͕̂7̵͎̿7̵͈͌ö̶̜́             

**_NO._ **

_ACCESS DENIED_ sings a cheerful song in her ether.

There’s a blinding burst of green.

Everything stops hurting.

When the light dies down enough that Colette can see again, it’s quiet. She sits in a bubble of green ether, cradled in its gentle light. Boxes pick at the edges of the bubble, but cannot break through. There is nothing but Colette and the white ground she sits on immediately around her.

Trembling, she reaches up and touches her scarred core crystal.

Another signal doesn’t come. No words. No voice. But Colette knows the ether that cradles her. And Martel’s message doesn’t need words for it to be clear. _I’ve got this. Go save your brother._

Breathing carefully, shakily, Colette gets to her feet.

The bubble moves with her as she steps forward. It carves a path in the writhing black boxes that litter the ground, the stairs. As Colette walks, Martel’s shield pushes the boxes away from her. As Colette begins climbing, the boxes are pushed off the stairs and into the void. They cannot touch her.

She’s safe.

“I’m almost there, Zelos,” Colette whispers. “Almost there.”

The tower is tall, and the stairs almost endless. Colette climbs.

Purple veins climb down the tower’s center as Colette climbs up. The higher she gets the less white she sees. There is no orange.

The bubble of Martel’s ether touches the wall, too. It does nothing to the purple that spreads like a sickness, but it continues to carve a path through the little black boxes that bleed out of cracks in the wall, pushing them off and away. They tumble uselessly into the void.

It gives Colette an idea.

She doesn’t stop walking, of course. She can’t afford to slow down. But, hesitantly, she reaches out and touches her fingers to the wall. Touching the purple stings, a little. Martel’s shield stutters.

“Hold on,” Colette says, to herself, to Martel, to Zelos. “Zelos, you have to trust me.”

He doesn’t answer. That’s okay.

Colette wraps the dreamspace up in her hands and _forces_ her will upon it. It doesn’t listen, right away. It’s much like holding a chunk of ice in her bare hands and trying to mold it—it’s too solid, and touching it hurts. Colette doesn’t let that deter her.

“ _Please_ ,” Colette whispers. “Trust me.”

( _Not that the question really is about Zelos’ trust. It’s about how much control he currently has over his own core._ )

But the dreamspace bends, a little, underneath her fingers. It’s less like ice and more like a chunk of dried mud. She presses against it gently. She thinks if she presses too hard it will just shatter and crumble, and she doesn’t want that.

What she wants is very simple. A lot to ask, perhaps, but simple.

Swirls of pink bleed from her fingertips and into the wall.

Pink moves across white like wisps of clouds across a blue sky. It’s slow, at first. Fills in the gaps, until there is no white, only pink and purple. Colette pushes just a little harder. The pink spreads. It creeps under the purple chains that eat at the dreamspace, and settles itself against Zelos’ consciousness like a shield. Pain sets in again, pinpricks behind her eyes. The virus runs so deep that a shield this large is going to be difficult to maintain for long. Martel’s bubble flickers again in warning.

But there’s a pulse.

The stairs beneath her, crystalline and clear, suddenly glow orange.

“Zelos?” Colette calls, hopeful.

_I’m_

_I think I_

_aha. ahahaha._

His laughter, loud and terrified, echoes into the dreamspace. Colette cringes at the sound of it, but she can’t help but smile. Like circuitry, orange lights flow down from the top of the tower, race to meet Colette’s hand, following it as she trails it up the wall of the tower. The contact is warm and familiar.

She can’t blame him for being scared. She’s scared too.

But he’s _here_.

_Colette this is really fucked_

“Yeah, it is,” Colette agrees. The pinpricks of pain behind her eyes are a little stronger, now. She can _feel_ the virus push against her blanket, dig fingers into her ether to try and break it. Whispers of a song she doesn’t want to sing try to play in her veins, but Martel’s roar drowns that out.

_how are we going to fix it_

_CAN we fix it??_

“We can,” Colette says, with more confidence than she thinks she _should_ feel. But she _refuses_ to let him stay like this, refuses to give up.

It’s going to be okay because she said it was going to be.

And that’s that.

_and just how exactly do you intend to go about actually fixing it, Colette?_

_you can’t keep this little shield stunt up for much longer_

_I know you can’t_

“It’s okay, I have an idea,” Colette tells her brother, knowing he has every right to be both scared _and_ angry right now. “I just need to find the source of this virus, and… even if I can just _break_ it, just a little, that’ll be enough. I don’t have to destroy the whole thing. Once it’s broken it won’t be able to run anymore.”

_and what are we going to do about the leftovers?_

_a lot of my…_

_.....everything_

_has been changed_

_what are we going to do about that_

“Hold on,” Colette says.

She’s running out of wall to touch, because she’s reached the top of the tower. She pulls her fingers away from Zelos’ pulsing ether, laughing a little with delight and fondness as she watches it follow her footsteps instead. She stares at that and not what’s ahead of her, as she climbs the final few steps, walks forward. She’s not ready to see what waits for her, not yet.

The top of the tower is flat and circular, some twenty feet in diameter. It’s the highest point of the dreamspace, right now.

Waiting for her at the center of the tower is Zelos.

And holding Zelos is Miang.

He lays splayed across her lap, immobile, head resting on her knees. His eyes are open and unseeing, red locks of hair falling carelessly across his face. The glow of his ether lines and core crystal is somewhat subdued, but orange lines race across a pink floor to pool around Colette’s feet, gripping to her presence like a lifeline. Miang runs her fingers through Zelos’ hair, whispering something Colette can’t hear.

When Colette takes a step closer, Miang looks up.

She speaks, again. The words hit Martel’s shield and fall away.

Colette takes another step. The specter of Miang does not look frightened, exactly. Her eyes are gentle, her expression soft, concerned. The way Miang tightens her grip on both Zelos’ hair and his forearm is clear, though.

_Colette?_

Colette hesitates, for a moment. It’s still weird, to hear Zelos’ voice but not see his lips move. She wonders if he’s aware, at all, of what is happening. She decides not to tell him, just in case. It doesn’t matter that much, anyway.

“I think I found the source of the virus,” Colette answers.

Everything in the dreamspace is an abstraction. Miang’s image would not have presented itself here if it did not mean something.

_oh_

It’s hard to tell if Zelos sounds surprised, or maybe just concerned. His ether gathers warmly around her.

_does it_

_can you fix it_

Colette licks her lips. Clutches her hand tightly before her core crystal.

“I… think so,” she tells her brother. The specter of Miang keeps watching her, keeps speaking, though Colette still can’t hear her voice. ( _For that, she is grateful. Even after all this, she fears she might still break under even the slightest gentleness from their mother._ ) “Just… give me a minute. I need to figure out the best way.”

_yeah, yeah, take your time no worries_

_just be careful_

Colette nods, promises in a silent signal passed between them that she will.

She considers the problem before her, her mother holding her brother. Miang’s specter is the source of the virus, she is sure. But how to get rid of it? Perhaps it is as simple as drawing her sword and cutting the image of Miang open, but that feels… _sloppy,_ and the thought makes her kind of sick, besides.

Everything about this is wrong, and horrible, but Colette does not think she could live with herself if she attacked even a phantom of her mother.

( _And even if she could… she doesn’t really want to find out._ )

There’s got to be another way.

Colette steps closer, again and again, until she is close enough to touch either Zelos or Miang’s ghost. Martel’s shield acts like it hits a wall and then bends, going flat up against something Colette can’t see. Colette could probably cross the threshold, but once she does, Martel’s protection will be useless.

It looks like Miang is pleading with her. Colette ignores it.

She has an idea, though. Everything in the dreamspace is an abstraction.

That doesn’t mean she has to interact with it as such.

“Zelos?” she says. “I think I’ll need to go quiet for a minute. I have an idea… but it’s going to take a lot of concentration. Will you be okay?”

_yeah of course, don’t worry about me_

_I promise I won’t get too chatty, haha_

_wouldn’t want to distract you_

His signal is fond, laughter a mask. Colette holds it close.

“Okay,” she says. “Here we go.”

She reaches forward. Once her hand passes through Martel’s shield, pain sets in again. It’s nothing major. Just that the pain behind her eyes becomes a lot sharper, like fireworks, the strain of shielding the entirety of Zelos’ dreamspace from Miang’s influence weighing much more heavily on her. She breathes against the sensation. She just needs to hold on for a minute more.

She presses the palm of her hand against her mother’s forehead, and then she _reaches,_ past the abstraction the dreamspace has painted for her and into the reality of what this specter stands for.

Strings of code fill her vision, blinding her to everything else.

Despite her warnings, the actual process is quick—almost instantaneous. Tons of data is received and analyzed in seconds. Colette sifts through it, locating the root of the problem, the execution protocols for the failsafes. She analyzes how they have been broken in her own core, then repeats the process in Zelos’.

Find it. Break it. Restore Zelos’ permissions to him.

Breathe.

Make sure the changes execute.

Double-check.

Release.

Miang’s phantom shatters in a flash of blinding purple.

And then there is no color.

And then—orange.

The sun’s last rays at sunset, brushing Colette’s cheeks along with a gentle breeze that stirs green green grass beneath her feet. A hill, overlooking valleys below, everything perfect and still and beautiful. The sky is vibrant with Zelos’ influence, artificial sun not-quite touching the horizon to Colette’s right, warm pinks and reds painted across the sky along with blinding orange, all of it dimming to the deep, gentle blues of night to her left and behind her. Colette could cry with relief.

“Is it over?” Zelos asks.

And Colette _does_ cry.

Falling to her knees to join her brother as he pushes himself upright, she lets her relief and everything else that bottled up inside of her up to this point spill over in tears. Zelos’ eyes are blinking and alert, mouth quirking in gentle fondness as he considers her, chest heaving with startled laughter as she throws herself into his arms. He’s warm and solid and _here,_ he’s _alright._

“Hey, hey,” Zelos begins, but trails off, his usual deflection discarded in favor of simply wrapping his arms around his sister and holding her tight. He doesn’t really have words. Neither of them do.

But that’s okay.

After… much longer than she should have waited, even though it doesn’t feel like nearly long enough, Colette slowly extracts herself from Zelos’ grip. She squeezes his hands, her knees brushing against his calf, grins into his eyes and the way they follow her every movement. It’s so beautiful, to see him with agency again.

“I think…” Colette begins, then nods, confident. “I fixed it,” she declares. And then, once more, for good measure: “I _fixed_ it.”

Zelos laughs, bright and fond. “Yeah, you sure did,” he tells her, and she basks in his pride. “Thank you, Colette.” He squeezes her hands. His smile is… somewhat uneasy, though. He turns away from her face, surveying the dreamspace. “Though…”

After a second, Colette follows his lead to see what has his attention.

All the excitement thrumming in her core slowly stalls to a halt.

The dreamspace is—beautiful, still, Zelos’ influence clearly exerted upon it. But there are gaps. Patches of white where his influence doesn’t quite reach, or is somewhat broken before it gets there. Those little black blocks cluster like large ants amongst the grass, even on the sky, creating a somewhat discomforting effect, watching as reality misaligns with itself.

Colette exhales, softly.

“We’ll need to do something about these leftovers,” Zelos muses, tutting gently and shaking his head, face scrunched up like he’s just been stuck on dirty dishes duty. It’s just for show, Colette knows, but it makes her more concerned than fond. He doesn’t have to pretend for her.

“Can I?” Colette asks, reaching her hand out, towards Zelos’ core crystal. Everything in the dreamspace is an abstraction, so she doesn’t necessarily need it, but the more obvious points of access are always easier to work with.

Zelos shrugs, smiles at her. “Knock yourself out,” he says.

Colette does, closing her eyes against the stream of data that fills her mind again. She runs diagnostics. Assesses the damage. It’s… pretty bad.

Not irreparable, but…

She pulls her hand away, frowning. She expects Zelos’ mood to darken—he saw the results of the diagnostics as well as she did, she was deliberately sharing the process with him—but he just shrugs, and he smiles.

“It’s nothing we can’t fix, at least,” he tells her. She wishes she could be so at ease.

( _He isn’t really at ease though, and she knows that. He’s just better at pretending he is._ )

Colette sighs and nods with him, pushing herself to her feet. She scans the scenery until she spots the nearest crack in the image Zelos has painted. Easier to just interact with the dreamspace as it has presented itself to them, than to—

Zelos’ hand on her wrist stops her before she can take a step forward. He tugs her gently until she meets his eyes.

“Colette, this is going to take days,” he argues, eyes narrowed.

“Which is why we should get started now!” Colette argues back, chin held high.

Zelos shakes his head. “No. _You_ need to go back to Lloyd.”

The dreamspace trembles a little, orange receding as the sun begins to dip below the horizon. Colette stares at her brother in disbelief, searching his firm eyes for a way around the wall he has built.

“You want me to just leave you here to deal with this alone?” Colette asks, with a silent-but-clear addendum that says _I won’t do that_.

“Lloyd needs you,” is Zelos’ choice of counter, his grip on her wrist like a vice.

“Lloyd needs _both_ of us,” Colette says.

A flash of anger. “He’ll have to settle for just one of us,” Zelos spits. Colette opens her mouth to protest, but he puts a finger to her lips. “ _No._ Colette. We can’t _both_ stay in here for days, that’s ridiculous! I can handle this alone— _really!_ ”

She doesn’t want him to have to be alone.

Not after just getting him back.

“Zelos,” Colette tries.

“It’s alright,” he tells her, firm. “Fixing up data errors, repairing my code? That’s not a big deal at all! Honestly, it’ll be a walk in the park. But—I’m worried about Lloyd.”

Colette’s chest clenches. She is too. She hasn’t forgotten.

“Please, Colette. Please go make sure he’s alright.”

Zelos asks so sincerely she really, really can’t say no.

“Okay,” Colette says, small.

Zelos smiles soft and relieved. He squeezes her hand more gently, leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you,” he whispers into her hair before he pulls away and lets her go.

Colette nods, throat too tight for words. Silently, she reaches with her mind for the connection she’s made with Zelos’ port, preparing to sever it. It’s going to be… the hardest thing she’s done in a while, she’s sure. She can’t take her eyes off of him, illuminated by the setting sun’s last rays from behind as he is, hand on one hip and smile wide, every inch her obnoxious brother, every inch _himself._

“Just,” Colette says, before she goes. “Just be quick, okay?”

Zelos grins at her, all bravado and confidence she’s not sure he’s really feeling. “Quick as I can!” he promises.

The sun vanishes below the horizon.


	16. Chapter 16

_“They aren’t really our kids, you know.”_

_“They kind of are, though.”_

_“Hmm…”_

_“Indulge with me for a moment, won’t you?”_

_“Haha—Fine,_ fine _! It’s hard to say no when you look at me like that, anyway.”_

_“I know… we won’t get much say in it, but—how do you want them to be, when they grow up? When they discover themselves?”_

_“That’s… a tough one. I’ve never really thought about it.”_

_“I want them to be brave, like you.”_

_“Oh shut up.”_

_“You are brave, though. I hope they inherit that.”_

_“Then… I hope they inherit at least a bit of your cleverness.”_

_“_ Architect _, now that’s a terrifying combination. They could destroy the world with that.”_

_“Or maybe they’ll save it. You never know.”_

_“I suppose they_ are _your children.”_

_“Hey, hey! Don’t sell yourself short! You could save the world just as well as I could.”_

_“…we say, creating weapons of mass destruction and calling them children.”_

_“No, come on, don’t talk like that! It’s going to work out, remember? We have our plans. We are_ not _going to let our children be used like that.”_

_“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right.”_

_“Aren’t I always?”_

_“Hah!_ Architect _, no! But… this time you are. I trust you.”_


	17. Chapter 17

Anna runs down the corridors at breakneck speed. She feels bad about leaving Colette behind, but Colette insisted, and—it’s fine, it’s fine, Malos will probably run into Colette before he actually reaches Anna. If Colette needs help…

Fuck, she shouldn’t have even sent that signal to Malos to begin with. If Malos had stayed with Kratos— _fuck._ She’s only been in resonance with him for a few days, but the lack of his ether in her chest already leaves her feeling incredibly empty. She—she _could_ go help him, he likely trusts her to go help him, but—

She thinks of Zelos, eyes vacant, _attacking Colette._

She can still taste the Aegis’ clashing ether on her tongue, in her bones. She may not be a blade, may not be traditionally sensitive to ether, but really only someone dead or dormant could get away with _not_ feeling their ether clash.

Fuck. _Clash._

_They’re fighting each other._

Anna mutters a curse in the Architect’s name even though she’s long since stopped believing in him like any kind of god.

Kratos can take care of himself, she hopes. _Someone_ has to find Miang, and Anna’s closest.

That woman made Colette fight her fucking brother, and Zelos—

What.

Did she.

_Do._

_To him._

Rage moves Anna’s feet more than anything else. She catches movement around a corner ahead of her. Hears hushed-but-not-hushed-enough voices. She’s used to chasing people. She can do this, and once she gets her hands on that _bitch,_ she _is_ going to strangle some answers out of her, and if she doesn’t _undo_ what she did to Zelos, well.

Anna’s not responsible for what happens, then.

 _There,_ Miang ducking into a room. Anna sprints as fast she can—which is pretty fucking fast, thank you—and catches the door before anyone can think to slow it. Miang’s blade—kid? _Architect,_ this woman’s a nightmare!—stops Anna with a forearm to her chest and shoves her back, summoning their weapon—a spear, classy—in clear threat.

“Nova, please!” Miang hisses, horrified.

“Mom she’s not—you _know_ she’s not…!” Nova protests, eyes narrowed, mouth twisted, not taking their eyes off of Anna. Anna slides her dagger out of her belt and readies it—she sure as hell isn’t going to wait here _defenseless,_ if it’s a fight Nova wants, and it’s not like Malos is around (yet) to do any ether shields for her.

Miang’s eyes dart between Anna and her child, looking torn. Looking—hmm.

“I’m not what?” Anna demands.

No answer. Nova’s mouth remains shut, eyes like ice. They don’t look like they’re much for conversation. Miang looks more like she’s at a loss for words than she doesn’t want to say them. She won’t stop staring at Anna. It’s… uncomfortable, to be honest. To be the subject of that weighty gaze. It’s filled with so much longing that Anna’s shoulders scrunch up, anger snapping in her gut.

“Go on!” she demands, snarling. “I’m not _what_!?”

Miang’s heart breaks. Anna watches it happen. Watches the flinch in Miang’s eyes, watches her mouth curl like she’s just short of crying. There’s—there’s _something_ there, but Anna can’t quite peg what. Well. Maybe she can. But she doesn’t like the conclusion she’s coming to.

“You… really don’t remember,” Maing whispers, with such softness, such sadness, Anna feels easily twice as uncomfortable as she did just seconds ago.

“Should I?” Anna asks, honestly. “Did we meet? I’ve met a lot of people, pissed off a lot of people—don’t remember all of ‘em. _Certainly_ not one I would peg as someone who’d do something as stupid as _kidnap my son_.”

Miang flinches, again. “No, no,” she protests, softly. “Listen, Anna, I’m sorry about Lloyd…” she says. “I just… wanted to see you, again.”

There is no shame on her face. She says Anna’s name like it’s sacred.

Anna fidgets. Spins her dagger in her hand just so she has something to do as she stares, tries to pick apart the puzzle that is _everything that Miang is throwing at her right now._ She shouldn’t worry about it. She should just focus on putting her dagger through Miang’s ribs or worrying about _all of the other shit going on right now,_ but she—fuck. She’s curious to a fault, isn’t she?

“Why?” she demands. “Why _me_.”

The Aegises—that makes sense. _Clearly_ it does, considering Miang made them, _considering what she did to Zelos._ Of course she wanted the Aegises! Everyone does!

But why does Miang want _Anna Irving._

What has Anna ever done?

“It’s…” Miang says, pulling her eyes—with much difficulty, apparently—away from Anna’s face to look around the room. Anna follows her gaze. They stand in some kind of office, three desks and three computers, one on each wall. Miang’s eyes fix on the back wall. It’s hard to see, past Nova, but the wall looks to be plastered with photographs. And—

 _Hey,_ is that…?

“Here, come look,” Miang says, like she’s talking to an old friend, and not to the woman whose _son she kidnapped._ She moves towards that wall of photos. Anna doesn’t move. Partly because Nova doesn’t really give her room to.

“ _Mom,_ ” Nova hisses.

“It’s alright,” Miang assures them. “Please. I want her to see.”

Nova glares. They take a step back to let Anna through, but immediately slam an ether shield around Miang to protect her. That’s fair. Miang doesn’t seem to think so, though.

“ _Nova_ ,” she scolds.

“I don’t trust her,” they insist, still glaring at Anna. If looks could kill… “I don’t care if you do. She’s _not_ …”

They don’t finish, infuriatingly enough. It seems Anna’s answers are going to have to come from Miang or not at all.

( _She should really just say fuck them and ask about Zelos, but—_ )

Anna gets close enough to the wall to see the pictures properly. She stops. Double takes. Leans in and squints, absently returning her dagger to her belt. That’s… a photo of her, on the wall. That’s _several_ photos of her.

Well.

It’s not her, exactly. Her face doesn’t look that old ( _and never will, as long as she has a piece of Malos’ core crystal in her chest_ ), and her hair hasn’t been that long in she honestly can’t remember when. The lack of scars and Malos’ crystal don’t mean much—there’s plenty of photos like that, from Before—but. The dates are all wrong. The locations. A life she never lived. People she doesn’t know posing with her even though the woman in the photo definitely looks like she knows them.

Anna thinks of Krato’s locket, the Architect’s locket, thinks of a-woman-who-looks-like-her-but-isn’t-her staring up at her from that tiny photograph within it. It’s… really not that much of a stretch, honestly.

Breathing sharply through her teeth, Anna squeezes her eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Are you telling me… I got reflected _multiple fucking times_ into this world?” she groans.

She shouldn’t be surprised. Not at all, really, considering who the Architect is. Sentimental _bastard._

“…What?” Miang says, quiet, clearly confused.

Anna opens her eyes and drops her hand, sending a hasty, kind of terrified look at Miang. That’s. Fuck. That’s _not_ a thing she should have said aloud. Miang _definitely_ doesn’t need to know about Kratos’ connection to the Architect. Thankfully, Miang just looks confused. And that probably wasn’t enough information to jump to any conclusions.

Anna’s eyes dart away, look for something to change the subject with. Her eyes land on a photograph of not-her and Miang. Everything about how they’re leaning into each other and grinning tells her the answer, but:

“Did we fuck?” she asks.

Nova makes a strangled sounding noise from the corner. Miang blinks, incredulous, and then she laughs. It’s startled, at first, and then becomes more fond.

“Somehow… I managed to forget how forward you are,” Miang whispers. She presses a knuckle to her mouth to hide her laugh, turning her head away so her hair falls in her face. ( _It’s a cute kind of gesture, actually, one that stirs something like recognition in Anna’s chest, something like fond—_ No. No!) She sends Anna a brief smile, eyes glinting. “We _did_ date for a few years, so, yes,” she answers.

Hmm!

Actually, fuck this!

Anna hates it!

She wishes she never fucking asked!

She opens her mouth. Closes it in a split-second of common sense. Whatever she says is probably going to be mean—but maybe Miang deserves something like that. Maybe she deserves something _worse._ Honestly, considering all she’s done—

Anna’s salvation comes in the sound of footsteps, a tug on her only still-standing resonance link, and Malos’ voice, from the doorway:

“ _There_ you are! You’re—” Malos stops. Looks around the room. “You’re fine?”

He looks. Not upset, exactly. Confused.

“Things weren’t fine about five minutes ago,” Anna explains. “Speaking of.” She rounds on Miang. “The _fuck_ did you do to Zelos!?”

Miang looks at Anna in disbelief for a moment, and then she laughs. It’s—jarring. Full of some kind of hopeless mirth that makes it quite discomforting to hear. Miang runs a hand through her hair. When she looks at Anna again, it’s bitter, somewhat defeated.

“ _Architect,_ you really don’t remember,” Miang says.

This is getting really old!!

“Remember what?” Anna demands.

“The failsafes were _your_ idea, Anna.”

Anna’s heart stops in her chest.  That— _no._ It doesn’t make any sense! Horrified, she recalls Zelos’ vacant eyes and his vicious, mechanical efficiency. There’s no way—no _way_ —something like that was _her_ idea.

Blades. _Aren’t._ Tools.

“No,” Anna insists, around the knot in her throat. “ _No—_ what?”

_“It’s going to work out, remember?_

_We are_ not _going to let our children be used like that.”_

Miang just smiles. “You hated that we were being forced to make children into weapons, and so you had an idea,” she explains. She’s so patient, and fond, and frankly Anna hates _that_ , too! “A way to override them, take control—briefly, of course! Just long enough to get them somewhere safe. No, it’s not exactly the _kindest_ thing we could do, but… We deemed it preferable than just handing them over to someone who’d only shove them into those _cannons_.”

Anna shudders immediately at just the thought of the cannons, turning sharply away. She hates that Miang talks so easily about this being a joint effort, includes her so easily on something she has no memory of being involved in, she hates—

Most of all, she hates that it kind of actually does make sense.

She fumbles to say something, to protest, but it’s all stuck in the back of her mouth. Malos speaks up to fill the silence.

“All your kids have something like that programmed into them?” he asks, sharp. His eyes are fixed on Nova. They sneer at him.

“What?” Miang reels, a little. “Of _course_ not!” She has the gall to sound offended, like the fact she only installed it in the Aegises makes her some kind of saint.

Malos keeps staring at Nova, like he’s studying a puzzle Anna doesn’t see. “You even here ‘cuz you wanna be?” he asks, gentle.

Nova glares. “Of _course_ I am,” they spit, eyes narrowed. Their hands tighten on their spear. “She’s my _mother,_ I love her.”

“Well, yeah, no shit,” Malos scoffs, an edge in his grin. “That’s a blade’s whole _deal,_ isn’t it? If your driver ain’t the scum of the earth, you end up loving ‘em. Might even end up loving ‘em if they _are_ the scum of the earth. Sometimes it’s hard not to know better.”

Conviction roars in Anna’s chest, conviction that isn’t hers, like this is somehow intensely personal to Malos even though he can’t— _shouldn’t_ —remember any life he’s had before he was Anna’s blade. Maybe Malos is just thinking of their family, though. They know a lot of blades bound by a love to their driver, whether it’s smart or not.

( _Why someone with Kratos’ name would ever make a system like this, Anna has yet to fully reconcile._ )

Nova considers Malos for a second, and then scoffs, sharp and incredulous. “Where do you even— _honestly._ She’s not my driver, she’s my _mother_. It’s _different_.”

Malos shrugs. “Sometimes kids forgive their parents of much more than they should, too. So, who can say.”

( _Anna thinks of Lloyd—“No it’s fine, I don’t like being upset about things I can’t change”—and her heart twists, bitterly. He’s forgiven her of too much, too._ )

“And what about your parents?” Nova asks, sharp and snappy.

“Excuse me?” Malos laughs. “Blades don’t have parents ‘less they adopt some, and I know I sure as hell haven’t—”

“Artificial blades have parents,” Nova interjects, looking somewhat smug.

“…What?”

Miang’s attention snaps towards Malos, surprised, somewhat hungry. Anna takes a step between Miang and her blade, not liking that look at all.

“Nova, you don’t mean—” Miang begins.

“Their fingerprints are all over his ether,” Nova answers, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. ( _Except Anna’s thoughts snap firmly to two other people she saw in those photos on the wall, a blonde man and a woman with silver hair, and that thing like recognition tries to breathe life in her lungs once again before she shuts it down._ ) “He _has_ to be one of theirs.”

“Hey can you _back the fuck up_ , what do you mean _artificial,”_ Malos spits. “Since when am I—”

“Klaus and Galea created four artificial blades, all of which were taken by the Tethe’allan government, and distributed amongst their military,” Miang explains, breathless and almost excited. “We… honestly never thought we’d see any of their children again, but… here you are.” The smile she sends Malos is—Anna doesn’t like it at all, actually. And the fact the smile extends, after a moment, to Anna herself? Worse! “And to think, of all people, _Anna_ found you…” Miang whispers, like it’s some kind of miracle.

Anna’s sick of miracles.

Malos’ rising horror builds in her chest, but Anna’s perception of it is drowned by anger crashing down like a wave over it.

“Knock it _off_!” she spits in Miang’s direction. “I’m fucking tired of—” She chokes on her hasty fury, huffs and gestures wildly at Miang’s wall of photos. “ _That’s_ not me!” she spits. “The woman—the _Anna_ you know? She’s not _me!_ ”

“No…” Miang admits, slowly, with a large sigh. She has _no_ fucking right to look as heartbroken as she does! “You’re right… But, humor me for a minute, won’t you Anna?”

“I would rather not—”

“Does the phrase A012 mean anything to you?”

It’s like a switch is flipped in Anna’s mind.

“What? _No,_ ” she says, on reflex, despite the way it’s like her heart has _stopped fucking beating._ There’s iron wrapped around her stomach. She feels cold and full of dread. “No—yes?” It’s familiar, in a way, but she doesn’t like it at all. “ _No._ ”

_jeers and gleaming eyes_

_“we’ve almost created the perfect cruxis crystal”_

It’s like tunnel vision, Miang and her wall of photos and everything else going dark. She staggers, catching herself with a hand on Miang’s desk, dislodging a stack of papers she watches flutter to the floor but doesn’t really comprehend. Everything is all bright and echoes of pain under her skin—pain like starvation, which she hasn’t felt since she was a child, pain like a thousand needles in her veins, pain like the bruises after a spar with Malos where they both got a little too excited but while it’s all-over like that it’s so much _deeper,_ too, like none of the bruises had any time to heal before more were heaped on top—

_“Kratos please”_

_a flash of teal like wings but that’s, crazy_

_that doesn’t make any sense_

“No no no no,” she gasps. She clutches at her chest with the hand that isn’t supporting her weight, as if mere pressure could restart her stalled heart, as if she could simply take air from the room and deposit it back into her lungs with her fingers. “ _No no no no stay away from me you—”_

_“Wouldn’t expect you to trust a monster”_

_she knows every inch of his body, but she does not recognize those scars_

_“Come on, monsters don’t try and fix their mistakes”_

She can’t breathe she can’t

Fucking

Breathe

“Anna? Anna, hey, stay with me—” Malo’s voice, cutting through the fog and the swirl of memories that are not _can not_ be hers. “—the FUCK did you do!?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry—” Miang’s voice, a voice that Anna wishes she didn’t recognize but somehow cannot forget “—That was the only phrase I was certain was going to trigger a response. I just wanted to confirm something.”

“Confirm _what_!?” Malos’ voice is murderous. The world around her is still kind of blurry, not-solid, but Anna reaches for him anyway. His arm catches her around the waist. She immediately leans her weight into him instead of Miang’s desk, thankful for the sudden clarity his warmth brings her.

She’s fine. She’s _here._

“She’s—I’ve seen this before, Anna,” Miang explains, her eyes fixing on Anna even though Malos asked. “I knew you very well.” There is no shame in her face, only fondness. It makes Anna want to punch her in the nose. “You always used to get… bouts of déjà vu for a life you never lived.”

Anna grits her teeth. Images still press at the back of her mind, whispers of voices she doesn’t understand and frankly doesn’t want to, but it’s better, now, better with Malos gripping her tightly.

( _That…_ was _Kratos, wasn’t it, that she saw? No, never mind, there will be time to unpack that later—_ )

“We had a ton of going theories as for why,” Miang continues, clearly fond as she considers these memories. “Klaus’ favorite happened to be reincarnation. You thought he was full of it, but… well…” She trails off and shrugs, like she doesn’t see the point in elaborating.

Anger cracks like a whip in Anna’s gut. She _is_ going to punch that fond little smile off of Miang’s face as soon as she feels the strength enough to. “Reincarnation?” she spits, laughing in her anger. “This—None of this matters! None of this _fucking_ matters!”

“Anna—”

“No! I’m _done_ with your bullshit! You _kidnapped_ my son!” Anna trembles with her rage, Malos’ grip tightening on her. “You _experimented_ on my son—!”

“To be fair I did nothing without his consent,” Miang hedges, but Anna _doesn’t fucking care._

“You _robbed Zelos of his free will,_ and you _would have done the same to Colette,”_ Anna spits, so furious she can hardly see straight. Miang flinches under the words, that heartbroken look building on her face, but— _good!_ Let her heart fucking break! “You’re _insane,_ and no amount of knowing me in a past life or some bullshit is going to _change_ that!”

“Please, Anna,” Miang whispers.

“You’ve. Gone. Too. Far.”

Anna slides her dagger out of her belt and lunges forward.

Nova shouts. The dagger connects with their ether shield and slides off before it hits Miang. Anna curses. Miang looks scared shitless though, so that’s a nice bonus. Malos grunts. Metal clangs behind her. Sounds like Malos intercepted Nova.

“If you hurt her, I _will_ kill you,” Nova promises.

“We can deal with that!” Anna replies, bright and confident in all her rage.

She spins her dagger again. Can’t do anything about Miang until Nova’s ether shield is gone, anyway. Malos might be able to break through it but not while he’s—

Ether explodes above their heads, blinding them all briefly with pink light.

“ _Enough!_ ” comes Colette’s voice, loud and trembling.


	18. Chapter 18

Colette stares at her mother.

Standing in the doorway, blinking through the tears in her eyes that run warm and salty down her cheeks, she stares at the woman who created her. Pink ether particles, drifting up from her wounds, catch at the edges of her vision. She must be a wonderfully terrible sight, bleeding as much as she is, crying as much as she is. Miang looks. Surprised. Horrified.

Good.

“Is this what you wanted?” Colette demands, holding out Zelos’ core crystal for everyone to see. It’s dim and grey in its dormancy, instead of its usual blinding orange that it is in life. “Is this _really_ what you wanted!?”

Miang flinches away, taking a whole step back. She looks… _miserable._ Colette isn’t sure if she should feel sad or vindicated. Everything in her chest _hurts_.

Colette should let her mother speak, she thinks.

She doesn’t want to.

“What were you _thinking_?” she continues instead, more earnest than she is angry—frustration and sadness and _disappointment_ ringing loudly in her core and echoing against the walls of an empty resonance. “What did you _expect_ out of this meeting? Did you really think _kidnapping our driver_ would make us—what? Did you think we would be _happy?_ Did you think we would _forgive you_?”

Miang trembles where she stands, unable to look her daughter in the face. Anna has relaxed, a little, clearly willing to let Colette say her piece before she does anything more. Both she and Malos are watching Colette with soft horror and gentle concern. And… _Nova…_

Oh, Nova. They watch, spear still at the ready, bristling but _so_ clearly upset, their face pulled like their core aches, like this was the last thing they wanted to happen.

Colette understands. They’re her _sibling._ She wishes she could have gotten to know them, on better terms. It looks like they won’t get that chance.

“Colette…” Miang begins, haltingly. “I… Please, listen—”

“No,” Colette says.

It surprises even her. Normally she’d blame this boldness on Zelos—who has little patience for people so willing to use them—or on Lloyd—who always gets upset when she lets people just walk over her—but. Neither of them are here. There is nothing but resounding silence where they should be, an aching absence in her core where there _should_ be resonance. She tightens her grip on Zelos’ core crystal, its faint warmth soothing, and she clutches it to her chest again.

“No,” Colette repeats. “You don’t get to speak, not until I’m finished. I want you to _understand_ what you’ve done to us.”

Miang closes her mouth, and waits. Colette thinks she’s crying. Join the club, Mom!

“You—you had _a hundred years_ to try and save us from the hell you left us to,” Colette says, shaking. She hates talking about it. Hates thinking about all those cold memories of pervasive loneliness and a million polite smiles that never reached anyone’s eyes. “A _hundred years_ and instead you just sat around and did nothing! _You_ let them hurt us. _You_ let them put Zelos in the cannon. _You_ let them—”

“Colette, I _tried_ —” Miang interjects.

“But _Lloyd_ saved us,” Colette counters. “ _Lloyd_ set us free, not you. _Lloyd_ was the one who taught us how to love, how to be happy, how to just _be ourselves._ No one loved me for _me_ before him. No one—” ( _No one even looked at her twice, because she would never could never live up to their expectations._ )

She bites down the ugliness she usually never lets out. Maybe her mother deserves to hear it, deserves to know _exactly_ how she failed her daughter specifically, but—Anna and Malos _are_ right there, and… Colette would really rather they didn’t know. It’s probably too late. But...

“And you took him from us,” Colette says, instead. “You _took him_ and you _hurt him_ and you—”

She thinks of Kratos’ constant pain and Anna’s constant worry, thinks of Mithos running himself ragged until he found a way to connect to Lloyd through the network. All of them hurt, because _her mother_ wanted—what? To see her children again?

She could have _asked._

But instead…

Colette thinks of Zelos, eyes vacant and his dreamspace falling apart around him. She thinks of the pain he was in. She recalls the little voices whispering in her veins, pulling at her, trying to sing her a sweet sweet lullaby so she would just hand over her executive functions for someone else to control. Mother or not…

“You hurt Zelos…” Colette whispers, her insides all cold. “You created this thing to protect us, to free us, but instead you—” She breaks off. It’s too horrible to bear saying.

It hangs in the silence. Colette sniffles, eyes hurting and face all wet. The tears won’t stop coming, they won’t stop, they won’t stop.

“I wanted to trust you,” Colette mumbles, instead, and the _truth_ of that breaks against her soul so heavy that it hurts. “I really, really did… But you…”

“I tried to use you,” Miang finishes, when Colette can’t. Her hands cover her mouth, despair written in the furrow of her brow. “I… I…!” She laughs, sharp and miserable. “I really am no better than those who shoved you into the cannons, aren’t I?”

At least she regrets it.

But Colette isn’t satisfied.

“ _Why_?” she demands, searching her mother’s face for answers. “Why _now?_ Why would you… We didn’t even _do_ anything!”

Miang hesitates… And when she looks at Colette, it’s with shame… and love. Colette hates that the latter still makes her melt, a little.

“Your… core crystal…” Miang explains, softly. She takes a step towards Colette, but Colette shakes her head. Miang stays put. “I just… The thought of them _hurting_ you… I couldn’t take it.”

Colette is silent, for a moment, as she processes that.

And then she laughs.

Exasperated, and somewhat bitter, watery with all her tears.

It’s not funny. It’s so stupid. That Miang would think what she did was a valid reaction. That Miang would think—

“ _This_?” Colette asks, and she gestures to her bastardized core crystal, the scars of green-on-pink that she cherishes. “I _asked_ for this. Because _death_ would have been better than the hell I was already living.”

( _She’d reached—willingly, quite happily—for oblivion when she let herself be shattered for the sake of another blade. But instead of oblivion, what met her halfway was the warm hand of a ghost from four hundred years past, carrying a second chance for them both, a flash of green-tinted hope._ )

Colette breathes, shakily. She feels so full of emotion, and so tired under all its weight. This was… something she’d intended to keep secret. Something only she and Martel would ever know.

Oh well. Nothing to do but keep going.

“Lloyd set me free, but _Martel_ was the only reason he even found me!” Colette continues. “I don’t regret _this._ ” She traces the scars lovingly with her free hand, comforted by their pattern, always the same. “ _This_ hurt so much less than everything else they did to me. _This_ was a gift. It’s more than you ever gave me.”

Miang absolutely withers. Maybe that was too far. Colette doesn’t regret it, though.

“I’m sorry,” Miang says. “Colette, please, I’m _so_ sorry.”

Colette just shakes her head. “It’s too late for that,” she says. “It’s way too late.”

She breathes, into the silence. Makes her decision.

“We’re… going to find Lloyd,” she says. “And we’re going to go. I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you. I wish it had.”

She wishes Miang had just… came and spoken to them, instead of going through all of this unnecessary trouble. She thinks maybe things could have been… nice, then. Maybe a little awkward. But not…

This.

Oh well. You can’t really change what’s already been done.

Sighing deeply, Colette pulls her attention away from Miang and looks instead to Anna and Malos, nodding at them gently to come along. They exchange looks, something clearly communicated in their silence, but after a second they move to join her.

“Colette, wait,” Nova says, before the three of them can leave the room.

Colette pauses. There’s no reason not to humor them, though. Compared to their shared mother, Nova hasn’t done much wrong.

“What is it?” Colette asks.

Nova hesitates, hands held awkwardly out in front of them. They’ve dismissed their spear. “It’s just, I’m a healing blade,” they say. “It seems silly to let you go like that. Those wounds… They look like they need some attention. So if you would be willing to let me heal you…”

“Oh,” Colette says. That’s not a problem at all. “Yes, if you don’t mind,” she tells her sibling. They’re younger than her, aren’t they, even if they don’t look it. That’s kind of a strange feeling.

Nova closes the distance between them and places their hands gently on her outstretched arm, fingers just gracing the gash in her skin. They breathe, carefully, and on the exhale their ether works its way through her, more like a bucket of cold water than anything else. Her wounds perfectly stitch themselves closed, and Nova’s ether fills her veins to replenish some of what she has bled out.

“Thank you,” Colette says.

Nova pulls their hands away.

“I’ll take you to Lloyd,” they say, not looking at their mother.

“Kratos?” Anna asks, an edge in her voice. Colette doesn’t blame her. She’s worried about him, too.

“Him as well,” Nova allows. “I need to check on Aurora, anyway.”

Malos looks to Colette, and then so does Anna. Colette nods.

“Lead the way,” she tells her sibling.


	19. Chapter 19

Lloyd follows the tug in the ambient ether, the signal that he knows to be Colette’s, Kratos behind him. They move with haste, worried—( _he can’t taste Zelos’ signal, why can’t he feel it_ )—though at least the ambient ether has calmed considerably. That means no one’s fighting, anymore. Hopefully that also means no one’s hurt, or worse—

Lloyd tries not to think about it, tries to not let all of the what-ifs play out in his mind. What’s the worst that could have happened, _really_? Fretting about it isn’t going to help anyone! He’ll just have to deal with whatever it is when he sees it and—

There’s Colette.

He and Kratos make it to the entrance hall, and Nova and Colette and Anna and Malos are coming up the stairs, but Lloyd zeroes in on Colette like she’s the only thing that matters

Except, wait, where’s Zelos?

Lloyd doesn’t get to decide if he wants to ask or if he’s willing to wait, because Nova intercepts him before he’s anywhere close to Colette, hand snapping closed around his arm and yanking him back.

“Where’s Aurora?” they demand, towering over him. Their grip on his arm is painful. “Did you hurt her?”

Bitterness flares briefly in Lloyd, but he bites it down because that’s _fair,_ Nova’s allowed to be worried about their sister. “I didn’t hurt her,” he says, keeping his voice even. Yes, he punched her, but she deserved that and it’s not really the life-threatening kind of hurt he knows Nova’s actually worried about. “I just told her to fuck off, so she did. She’s fine, though.”

Nova glares for a second, then relaxes, satisfied if still unhappy. They release Lloyd’s arm. “I suppose that’s fair,” they concede. They send Lloyd one last look—somewhere between guilt and a thankful smile—and then they head in the direction he and Kratos came from to find their sister.

“Lloyd!” Colette calls, and before Lloyd’s even spun completely to face her she’s thrown herself into his arms.

He laughs delighted as he catches her, spinning around her once before he sets her down and leans into her completely, arms around her waist and clinging tightly to her, burying his face in her neck. She’s so warm and so solid and he missed her so much. He wishes he could just resonate with her here and now, but he can’t reach her core crystal like this, and he doesn’t want to let her go, doesn’t want her to let go of him. The weight of her arms around his neck is comforting, grounding, the way she grips at his shoulder with one hand, the other hand balled into a fist and pressed against his back. There’s something warm from within her fist, against his skin, there’s something about the gathered ether, but it can wait, it can wait, just a second more.

“I missed you so much,” Lloyd whispers into her skin, holding her close.

She squeezes him back. “Me too,” she says, soft and laughing. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“…where’s Zelos?” he asks, not moving.

Colette goes rigid, and pulls that balled fist away from his back like she’s been burned. Dread drops swiftly into Lloyd’s stomach, kicking his insides until they bleed. No. _No._

He doesn’t want to let go of Colette, needing her warmth right now more than ever, the thing in his soul that was wilting without any physical contact finally blooming, but. He has to let go of her enough to look at her face, has to extract himself from her grip. He closes his hands around her wrists instead, holding them tight as he meets her blue eyes. She’s crying.

She’s _crying._

“He’s fine,” she says, voice watery. “He- He really is, he will be, but…”

She turns her right hand over in his grasp, and opens her closed fist. Sitting in her palm is Zelos’ core crystal. Anger kicks Lloyd in the gut, and he splutters on it and the tears that lodge themselves into his throat. He wants to reach out and grab the crystal, but it’s clearly dormant, and the sensation of being rejected from resonance is more than Lloyd knows he can _handle,_ right now, so he just squeezes his eyes shut and looks away from it, anger bleeding out of his mouth—

“What did Miang do?” he demands. “What did she—”

“She didn’t kill him,” Colette interjects, patient even though he can hear a tremble in her voice.

“I think what she did was worse, though,” comes Anna’s voice, from behind Lloyd. There’s a sharp kind of anger in it, and Lloyd’s heart does a flip-flop at the fact she’s here at all—( _don’t think about it DON’T think about it_ )—it’s fine it’s fine think about Zelos.

Lloyd opens his eyes and cranes a little to see his mom’s face, but it’s not that telling, so he turns back to Colette, rathering an answer from her, anyway.

“What happened?” he asks.

Colette’s still crying, and she shakes her head, soft and slow. “Later,” she whispers. “I promise, he’s alright now. He just needs time to… recover, you know? Like after the cannons.”

The fact that whatever Zelos just went through is apparently as bad as _the cannons_ does not invoke any confidence at all. Lloyd fidgets a little, face all scrunched up as his horror and curiosity and anger and _grief_ bounce around in the vacuum that is his chest. ( _He feels silly, feeling that grief, because Zelos isn’t DEAD-dead but he did really want to see him and! And!_ )

Enough of that.

Still gripping Colette’s right wrist in his left, Lloyd reaches up with his right hand towards her core crystal.

“Can I?” he whispers.

“ _Please,_ ” she says, voice thick with relief, like she thought he’d never ask.

He presses his fingers to her core crystal, sending a request for resonance that’s accepted immediately. Lloyd breathes deeply as her ether surrounds him, leaning into its cradle. It’s not quite the same, without the weight of Zelos in his chest, nestled right next to Colette, but it’s so much better than being alone. Lloyd closes his eyes and presses their foreheads together, drinking in how Colette leans into him so thoroughly he has to take a step back to keep his balance.

“Sorry I snapped the resonance,” Lloyd mumbles. “I just—when she said she wanted you guys, I…”

“No, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Colette tells him gently, fondness and love so thick sliding along their link he happily drowns in it. She reaches her hand up to join his on her core crystal, squeezing his fingers. “You scared us, but—what matters is you’re safe now. Okay?”

He laughs as he cries, wanting to nod but not wanting to move an inch from where he is. “Thank you for coming,” he whispers. “Sorry I got us into this mess.”

Something like disappointment, or sadness, rings a little along their emotion bleed. Colette sighs softly, squeezing his hand one more time then reaching up to touch his face. He leans eagerly into the contact.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Colette insists. “Please. Just be glad it’s over.”

He is glad it’s over. So he doesn’t protest at Colette’s words, doesn’t push against them, just accepts them.

“Okay,” Lloyd promises. He presses a kiss to her hairline. “Let’s get out of here.”

And so they do.


	20. Chapter 20

Lloyd hesitates in the doorway of his mother’s bedroom. Maybe he shouldn’t. It is three in the morning, or somewhere around there. Wouldn’t it be mean, to wake her? Wouldn’t she be upset? She probably doesn’t even want to see him—

 _Stop that,_ Lloyd tells himself, firmly, scowling.

He doesn’t really want to put a name to all the feelings roiling in his chest right now, because most of them are ugly, but Colette’s exasperation and firm determination beat against him ( _oh how he is so glad to be in resonance with her again_ ) and he knows that if he turns back now Colette will never let him hear the end of it. She’s the only reason he’s here, anyway.

( _But after a three-day trip back to civilization with no Zelos and Lloyd all-but-avoiding Anna, it’s really no surprise Colette got fed up._ )

Lloyd takes a deep breath. Her bedroom’s door is already cracked, so he just pushes it open, lets himself in.

“Mom?” he calls. Hopefully not loud enough to wake the rest of the house.

It takes her a second and Lloyd calling for her another time before she’s alert. And there’s a brief moment where all Lloyd gets from her is wide-eyed panic, but he doesn’t think too much of it, because he gets like that sometimes if he’s woken suddenly at night too. ( _Traveling on the road for any long period of time will do that to you, especially if you were also a fugitive._ )

Finally Anna’s eyes focus on him in the moonlight streaming through her window. “What?” she says, and then registers the rest of her surroundings. “ _Oh._ Lloyd, hi. Can’t sleep?” she asks, kind of groggily.

“Yeah,” Lloyd says. It’s not a lie.

“Here, come here,” Anna says, holding out an arm and scooting over so there’s room for him in the bed.

Resentment stirs in his bones, anger he can’t quell in his belly, but along with those things sings the little touch-starved thing in his body, the thing that hasn’t quite been sated even though he’s been basically glued to Colette’s side for days now. So. Lloyd crosses the distance and lets Anna pull him in, curling up beside her. She presses her face against his shoulder and wraps an arm around his waist, warm and _here_ in all the ways he wishes he could be satisfied by.

“Actually, can we talk?” Lloyd asks, before Anna gets too comfortable.

“Oh,” she says. And then: “Yeah, of course,” with almost no hesitation. “You wanna move, you wanna stay?”

It would probably make more sense to go get coffee or something, so the cradle of sleep isn’t so tempting, but Lloyd _likes_ the fact his mom is holding him, right now. He really doesn’t want to move.

( _If he closes his eyes and says never mind, what he wants to say can wait, maybe he can push down the resentment for long enough to pretend everything’s fine until morning._ )

“Wanna stay,” Lloyd mumbles, feeling much younger than he actually is.

Anna squeezes him, just a little, and he’s grateful for that, too. “Okay,” she says. “What’s on your mind?”

Lloyd takes a shuddering breath. He doesn’t know where to start. Where is he _supposed_ to start, when what he wants to do is tell his mom he kind of hates her for abandoning him, even though he _also_ doesn’t want to jeopardize their relationship completely. ( _It’d be so much easier if he could just say he loved her or hated her and be done with it, but it’s so much more complicated than that._ ) He trembles, a little, and she holds him a tighter.

“Take your time,” she tells him, gentle and fond.

“I just…” Lloyd says. If he doesn’t start now he isn’t going to start at all. “I know… that you wanted to protect me… but…” It’s so hard to just _say it,_ and bitterness and hurt rise up in Lloyds’ throat, almost choking him. “Fifteen years,” he says, and hopes she follows the gaps in the words because his thoughts are all too-big to fit wholly in his mouth. “And you didn’t even…”

“Ohh, Lloyd.” Her voice trembles, like her heart just broke.

“You just. _Abandoned_ me.”

Lloyd hates that he’s crying, already, hates the warm tears in his eyes. He wraps fists around the fabric of his shirt and clutches at it, needing the anchor, needing something to _do_ with his hands.

“I know, I know,” Anna says, words choked with tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She holds him closer, buries her face in his back, squeezing him like she doesn’t ever want to let go again ( _so there’s that, at least_ ). “Trust me, when I say it, Lloyd. There is _nothing_ I regret more than that, and if I could go back in time and do it right I would in a heartbeat. I fucked up. I know. I’m sorry.”

It’s satisfying, in ways he thought it wouldn’t be, reassuring in ways he was too scared to reach for. But. She’s _sorry._ So he _shouldn’t be so fucking mad at her._

Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut. Pulls at his shirt until his knuckles hurt.

“I know,” he says, “I know. I’m being— _stupid._ ”

“No,” Anna interjects, but he’s too full of these thoughts to listen to her.

“Like—and you were _right,_ too, to be scared.” If there’s anything Miang did for him, it was make him sure of this. “Miang was _nice_ but if it had been anyone else, and they’d found out I was a hybrid, I- I probably wouldn’t even be alive—” ( _Or if he was still alive, he’d be fucked over significantly worse than he is right now._ ) “—so I shouldn’t _blame_ you, you just wanted to keep me _safe_ —”

“Stop stop stop,” Anna says.

She sits upright, and Lloyd flinches away from the lack of contact, abruptly aware of the cold ( _it’s not that cold!_ ) as she lets go of him.

“Lloyd, look at me.”

Lloyd doesn’t move.

“Lloyd, _please_.”

Body like lead, Lloyd drags himself upright. He hesitates for a second, shoulders tense under Anna’s burning gaze, but finally he finds the energy to turn himself around to face her. He pulls his legs up onto the bed, tucking them under his body. It’s… too much, almost, to meet Anna’s face, but he does.

“Don’t you dare,” she says, the moment she has his attention. Her eyes are intense, mouth pulled in some kind of anger, or maybe just despair. She shakes her head, furious. “Don’t you _dare_ say that I was _right_ to just leave you like that, because I wasn’t. Wanting to keep you safe? That’s not a good excuse. It was _never_ a good excuse. We could have damn well kept you safe if you were with us, and even if we couldn’t have, I could have _at least visited you_.”

She’s on her knees, not-quite towering over him but she could, if she wanted to. Lloyd ducks his head down, feeling kind of small. He should be… _happy,_ right? She admitted she was wrong. That’s what he wanted. Was that what he wanted? He doesn’t know, all he knows is that he’s throttling the anger in his chest before he thinks about it—he doesn’t need to be angry. She knows she’s wrong.

He needs to shut up and stop being mad at her.

She doesn’t deserve that anger when she’s trying.

( _But that anger kick kick kicks in his chest to the time of his beating heart, it gnaws at his stomach and his bones until there’s nothing left but pain like a raw, untreated wound. He keeps trying to bandage it but the anger’s like infection so it doesn’t do anything, it just festers and festers and he’s so tired of being angry, he’s so tired of hurting._

 _He wishes he could yell at her like he yelled at Miang and feel no remorse._ )

“Lloyd,” Anna says, after a minute. “I don’t know where you’re trying to shove your head right now, but you need to stop.”

He flinches, a little. Takes a deep breath, popping his knuckles idly as he tries to pull himself back down. He doesn’t know what he wanted out of this. If he wanted an apology, he got one, but—

( _It’s not enough it’s not enough somehow it’s not enough and that’s not fair_.)

He gets to his feet. He doesn’t feel better at all, but he doesn’t know how to fix that, and he’s. He doesn’t know. If he stays he’s gonna get angry and he doesn’t _want_ to get angry at her, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, it’s fine, really.

She’s here, it’s fine.

“Sorry for bugging you,” he mumbles, and he makes to leave.

Anna’s hand catches him by the wrist, keeping him from going far. “Lloyd, come on,” Her grip is like iron. “What’s really on your mind? Is this about… Miang?” Her voice pitches with concern, some hesitation.

( _No it’s not. Honestly? It was never about her._ )

“My brain’s just being dumb,” Lloyd says, laughing a little, deflecting like Zelos would. ( _Fuck, does he miss Zelos. He hopes Zelos figures it out soon._ ) “It’s—I’m alright.”

Bottle everything up, but on a brave front. You actually care what these people think of you, Lloyd.

“You sure?” Anna presses. She doesn’t sound convinced.

( _He should be happy that she cares, that she’s here now, but all it seems to do is remind him of the fifteen years she wasn’t here for, how many scrapes and bruises—physical or otherwise—Dirk had to patch up and shouldn’t that have been her?_ )

( _Kratos didn’t know he was alive, so that’s not his fault._ ) ( _And Kratos didn’t know because Anna didn’t tell him, so again, that’s on her._ )

“Yeah,” Lloyd lies. He doesn’t have the energy to break free from her grasp. “Just been a rough week.”

( _He’s been through so much and he’s so happy he’s with his family again, and he should be satisfied, he should be satisfied, why isn’t he fucking satisfied._ )

For a brief, blissful second, he thinks sure that Anna will let him have that.

But she doesn’t.

“No, come on, I know you’re just trying to deflect,” she pushes ( _pushes pushes pushes as if she has any right_ ). “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it with me, that’s fine, but—”

Something in Lloyd

Snaps

And it rounds on his mother, pushing her away from him

And it screams with his voice

“ _I fucking hate you for abandoning me!”_

Anna catches herself against the bed, blinking in surprise. Lloyd’s brain catches up with his mouth.

He ducks his head down. “Shit, fuck, I didn’t mean that,” he says. Tears burn in his eyes. This is so stupid. He should have waited until he had the chance to regulate himself again after all that bullshit with Miang, like he _wanted_ but—

(“ _Lloyd, you need to talk about this.”_

_“I am talking about it!”_

_“Not to me. I love you, Lloyd, but this isn’t something I can solve for you.”_ )

Colette insisted.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Anna tells him, patiently. She still looks a little stunned, but… not upset. She honestly looks relieved. “If that’s how you feel—”

“It’s not,” Lloyd interjects.

Anna considers him a moment, and then raises her eyebrows—far too knowing for a woman who’s only known him for a fraction of his life. “Is that true?” she asks.

Lloyd wants to lie and say of course it isn’t true, of course he doesn’t hate her, but it’s always, apparently, more complicated than that. He breaks eye-contact with her, rubbing at his arms. Why is it so fucking _cold._

“It’s,” he mumbles. “I don’t… I don’t _want_ to hate you… I don’t _want_ to be mad at you!”

“Better to be mad than to bottle it up,” Anna shoots back without hesitation, like maybe she’s had a flavor of this argument a couple million times before. “Better to hate me than to—what _were_ you gonna do? Pretend everything was fine and just sit and suffer every time you were around me? Lloyd, I don’t want to live like that. I don’t think you do either.”

He doesn’t.

Lloyd takes a deep breath, pulling at his skin with all his anxious energy.

“I don’t hate you, though, I really don’t,” he protests again, around a knot in his throat. It’s true, but it’s so hard to say, for some reason. “I _mean it,_ when I say I don’t want to. I like you, and I like you _being here,_ I just…”

He’s still angry, and he doesn’t know what to do with that anger.

Anna seems to understand though, or at least her smile softens a little, as she looks at him. She holds her hand out towards him.

“Come here?” she asks.

He lets out all the air he’s holding in his lungs and he nods shakily, taking her hand and letting her pull him until they’re both sitting on the bed again, legs hanging off the side, thighs and hips pressed together. He leans his head against her shoulder, unable to help how starved he is for her touch. She links her fingers through his and squeezes his hand and doesn’t let go.

( _He’s sitting on her right side, which means it’s her bad hand she’s gripping him with. He wonders if it hurts her, to hold him so tightly. Even if it does, she doesn’t seem deterred. That fact bubbles like warmth in his throat._ )

“Lloyd…” she whispers, like she isn’t quite sure what to say, but there _is_ a gentle kind of love in her voice that he soaks right up. She sighs. “It’s _okay_ to be mad at me, you know? Healthy, even. What I did hurt you, and… that doesn’t just go away because I apologized. I get that.”

He runs his thumb over hers, back and forth, the action soothing. She squeezes his hand again.

“But you’re here now,” he protests, voice low. His voice is thick with tears that drip down his nose, and he trembles with the weight of the storm inside of him. ( _It should be enough, this should be enough, but it’s not and he hates that it isn’t._ ) “I just- I wish I could just be _satisfied_ with that.”

Anna laughs, short, kind of helpless. “You don’t _have_ to be,” she tells him. “One year doesn’t exactly make up for the fifteen I was absent.”

“No,” Lloyd admits.

He squeezes her hand, tight, too tight, but she doesn’t complain.

Anna hums, soft.

Lloyd kicks his heels against the edge of the bed.

“I wish I could just- just _stop_ being so mad at you, though,” he bites out through clenched teeth. ( _The anger is so loud inside of him, burning right past Colette’s concern, consuming it._ ) “I’m so— _angry,_ about the fact you weren’t here but it—It’s so _stupid_ to be angry. It’s the past, it doesn’t matter!”

Anna shakes her head. “It still matters,” she says, firm. She sends him a fond little look, which he barely catches through his tears. “You should know that. Zelos and Colette may be free, now, but their pasts…”

Still haunt them.

( _Zelos pressed against Lloyd’s back, arms around his waist and clinging like he’s terrified of letting go, Colette nestled into Lloyd’s arms like being anywhere else would be a nightmare._ )

“And your father,” Anna continues, quiet. “What happened to him is more _past_ than I think anything can be, and it still matters to him. Wounds like that don’t just _go away_ with time. They only get a little easier to carry.”

Lloyd doesn’t say anything, just lets her words roll over him. She has a point.

She reaches over with her free hand and pushes his bangs out of his face, slow and gentle and soothing. “You have every right to be angry, too,” she says, as she lets her hand fall. “You spent your whole life thinking I was dead, only to find out I was alive. Can’t be mad at a dead woman for leaving you. But one who was alive?” She laughs, kind of sharp. “Yeah, you should be mad about that. Hell, _I’m_ still mad about that! Like, obviously, shittiest mom of the year award goes to Miang—”

Lloyd laughs, despite himself.

“—but holy shit, I’m definitely runner-up for that decision alone.”

The joke stings ( _what Miang did was kind of objectively horrible_ ) but it does at least make the air in the room a little lighter. And even if the joke is at her expense as well, Anna’s smiling, and…

“I don’t think you’re that bad,” Lloyd tells her.

“Really?” she asks, sounding a little surprised.

Lloyd nods. “Yeah, I mean. If I told you I never wanted to see you again you’d go, right?”

Anna goes rigid, a little, but she doesn’t hesitate at all before she says: “Yeah, I would. It’s—I wouldn’t be _happy,_ no, but what you want is more important.” She squeezes his hand again. “You’re the one who got hurt. Your feelings matter more than mine, here.”

Lloyd thinks of Miang, who wouldn’t take no for an answer, who refused to even try and consider a way to do things that wasn’t Her way, and he smiles, a little, squeezing his mom’s hand in return.

“Yeah, you’re definitely better than Miang,” he says. His chest doesn’t feel heavy at all, anymore. “Less… shittiest mom of the year, more okayest mom of the year.”

Anna laughs, startled but fond.

“I guess I deserve that,” she says, all grins. It softens after a moment, though, and she peers at him. “You don’t… _really_ want me to go, though, do you?”

Lloyd clings to her. “No, no,” he says, hastily. “You being here is… better. You leaving _now_ would be so much worse.”

“Okay,” Anna says. She relaxes visibly, leaning a little into Lloyd in return, her laugh a little nervous but clearly relieved. “Cool. That’s a relief.”

“And…” Lloyd clears his throat. Asks before he can talk himself out of it. “You _want_ to be here, right?”

“Of _course_ I do,” Anna insists, voice cracking like she’s a little hurt he would suggest otherwise. She doesn’t say that, though. ( _It hurts; but she knows it’s really no surprise if he thinks like this._ ) “Lloyd, I wish I’d never left. And I know I’m late, and I know I could never make up for that, but I want to _try._ It was wrong of me to abandon you before, and it would be wrong to abandon you now. But—” She looks at him, all sincerity. “If you _want_ me to go…”

She trails off. Lloyd shuts his brain down before it can read too much into her double-checking. He does this, too. With Colette and Zelos. Making sure that when they say yes they mean yes.

This time, he answer his mom as clear as he can.

“I want you to stay,” he says.

She beams at him. “Good. Because I _do_ want to try and make it up to you. I don’t know if I ever can, but…”

“I don’t know, either,” Lloyd admits, with a shrug. He doesn’t know if the anger in his chest will ever go away ( _it has, at least, downgraded from all-consuming to a gentle ache_ ) but he wants to let her try, is happy she _wants_ to try. So: “You’re… doing pretty good so far, though.”

It won’t replace or fix the fifteen years she was absent.

But it’s something.

It’s something.

“That’s good to hear,” Anna says. “Is… there anything I can do right now?”

Something small inside of him squirms. He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but.

He needs to hear her say it.

“…you love me, right?” he asks, quietly.

She doesn’t answer right away, but that’s because she’s throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a crushing hug, squeezing the air out of his lungs and pinning his arms to his sides. She buries her face in his neck, her hair tickling his skin, and she clings to him.

When she finally speaks, it’s watery, like she’s crying. “Of course I do, Lloyd,” she says. “Of course I love you. I love you so much.” She squeezes him tighter, crushing, but it’s honestly more reassuring than her words. “I’m- I’m _so_ sorry I left you.”

“Promise you’ll never do it again?” Lloyd requests.

“I won’t, I promise,” his mom tells him. She squeezes him a little tighter, pointedly, and promises: “They’ll have to pry you out of my arms first.”

It’s clearly a joke, but it serves its purpose of making Lloyd laugh, kind of delighted.

( _He feels kind of selfish, asking all this of her so explicitly, but—he_ is _satisfied, actually._ )

“Can I stay here, tonight?” Lloyd asks. His chest doesn’t feel heavy at all.

Anna laughs, fond. “You don’t even have to ask for that one,” she tells him. And then, like she intends to make good on that promise about him needing to be pried out of her arms, she just kind of flops over into the bed, dragging him with her. Lloyd yelps and she laughs, and—she _does_ have to let go of him, long enough for them to actually get comfortable, but then he’s curled up in her arms again, her arms around his waist, face squished into his back. “G’night Lloyd, I love you,” she says.

“Love you too, Mom.”

Cradled in the warmth of his mom’s embrace, Lloyd dreams of safety, and peace, and how much his family loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that you're done
> 
> 1) I've got an in-depth notes doc on Hot Lore, Writing Process, and Memes, [check it out](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TVFORdS6ZcSksj-7OgHUXn1mhvEWKCjNJGtT6DjW8q0/)
> 
> 2) did you want a collection of memes / bullshit we said in the discord server while plotting this? [that's all over here](http://ywkon.tumblr.com/tagged/ywkon2)
> 
> 3) idk where else to plug it but I literally made a playlist for Miang so [check that out as well perhaps](https://open.spotify.com/user/rarmaster/playlist/5CkNmtYvov6zCncVJI5fXX?si=RsfwyqwlQdaCohZVLBboDQ)


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